Targeting Sweets
by DianneRose2016
Summary: Full Summary Inside: Set right after 9x3. Sweets is shot when he leaves the Founding Fathers. As the team waits to hear if Sweets is going to make it, his apartment is set on fire killing everyone in the building. The team races to try and track down the one targeting Sweets before his attacker strikes again. Sweets isn't dealing with everything as well as they all thought.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: So I have now seen all nine seasons of Bones and the first episode of season 10. I have to say I am very upset that Sweets dies and I can't help, but feel that the show would have been much better with him alive still. He was my favorite character and I feel like there could have been a lot they could have done with him. It's sad that he is gone and with him gone I have lost the interest in watching the show anymore. So I have decided to give this a go. I have never written science stuff before so hopefully this turns out well.**_

 _ **Summary: This will be set in Season 9 just after Episode 3. Sweets leaves the Founding Fathers and heads out front. He is going to flag down a cab when he is a victim to a drive by. Only something as domestic as a drive by is quickly turned into a more serious situation. Pelant is behind the attack and he has now targeted Sweets again as his number one enemy. The team has to try and find Pelant and keep Sweets alive and safe, but Pelant is going to make sure Sweets not only dies, but he dies without secrets. The team is about to learn a lot more about their friend that they never knew before.**_

 _ **STORY WARNINGS: Violence, mention of child abuse, bad language, mention of child molestation and potentially rape (Depending on how the story plays out.)**_

 _ **CHAPTER WARNINGS: Violence and bad language.**_

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Chapter 1

Sweets had just left the Founding Fathers. He knew that everyone wanted him to stay and celebrate and return to work, but that just wasn't something he could do right now. He needed some time to figure things out. He needed some time to get his head cleared. It wasn't just about what happened with Pelant. That did piss him off and upset him that Pelant took his work and used it against them resulting in two FBI Agents getting killed. It was also that for the past five years he had been working with the FBI profiling to catch criminals and murderers. He had to get into their mindset and try to figure them out. It took a lot out of a person more so then people realise. Sweets had a few hard times when he just couldn't seem to bounce back right away from a case. He needed this break to feel like himself again; to feel like he was making a difference with the living and not just the dead. Booth had been fighting him on this, but tonight he had actually called him his little brother and even though he didn't understand fully why Sweets needed the break he supported him. It meant a lot to Sweets that Booth would support him even if he didn't fully understand. He had Booth's trust and respect and even his love. It helped Sweets know that someone out there would miss him if he was gone. He had a family again and Sweets was thankful for them each and every day. Sweets knew that once his vacation time was up that he would be back to work with the FBI, but he was confident that he would be going back stronger than ever. Sweets was confident that everything would work out alright. He just needed this small amount of time to gather focus and give his mind a rest. The nightmares were still there from all of the cases he had seen, but there wasn't any being added and Sweets had been given a prescription for a sleeping pill that he could take if he needed it. There had been a few times when he had gone a few days without sleep because of insomnia and he had to take a pill to be able to fall asleep. Sweets had been dealing with his insomnia since he was a very little boy it was something that he was used to. All Sweets could do was hope that everything would work itself out.

Sweets was about to go over to the curb to hail a cab when he saw an older beat up car coming down the street. All he was able to see was that it had a driver and a passenger and Sweets recognized them as two members of the Estrellas Locas. He was too late though to see the semi-automatic weapon that the passenger was holding out the window. The next thing Sweets knew he was being shot at and falling to the ground as the car raced by and bystanders on the street were running for cover. Sweets hit the ground on his back with his right leg bent up towards him. Sweets was having a hard time getting his breath as the pain filled his entire body. Sweets couldn't hear anything around him. He felt like he was in some kind of hole or alternate reality that made everything sound like it was a hundred miles away from him. His vision blurred and faded in and out as Sweets tried to focus to see just how badly he was hit. He knew he had to do something, but his body wasn't listening to him and his mind just couldn't focus through the pain and the blackness edging from the corner of his eyes.

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Booth, Bones, Cam, Angela and Hodgins were in the Founding Fathers drinking to their success. It was bittersweet though, because even though they were able to close the case they were still not going to be getting Sweets back anytime soon. There was still a good two months left of his leave and he was planning on taking it.

"I still think it's a waste of his talent." Hodgins said after Sweets had left.

"He needs the time Hodgins and we are going to let him have that time." Booth said in a serious voice.

"I mean I guess it makes sense. He does profile for other Agents and not just us. There's no telling what crimes he sees every single day. I would need a break too." Angela said.

Ya I guess I never thought of it like that. I can see how it would screw someone up having to get into the mind of a murderer." Hodgins said.

"He does more than just murderers, he helps with kidnappings, arsenics and sexual assaults. It would take a toll on anyone, but especially someone who isn't even thirty yet." Cam said.

"Sweets will be back in a couple of months and maybe this time a part will help him do his job even better. Plus it doesn't mean we can't see him in between now and then." Bones said trying to sound positive. She had missed Sweets just as much as everyone else, possibly even more.

"Ya exactly we can all get together for dinner or something." Booth said.

Before anyone could say anything else they all heard gunshots coming from outside and everyone in the bar flinched and screamed from the sound. Once the gunshots were over not even a minute later from when they started there was only one thought going through Booth's mind.

"Sweets." Booth said with concern as he moved away from Bones and ran out the door.

Everyone else followed after Booth, all worried about their friend that had walked out of the door not even two minutes ago. They got outside and they all couldn't believe that there on the sidewalk was their friend bleeding out. Booth, Bones and Cam instantly ran over to Sweets.

"I see four bullet wounds." Bones said as she placed her hands over the one bullet wound to Sweets' chest dangerously close to his heart.

Cam placed a hand over one of the bullet wounds to Sweets' stomach while Booth had his hands on another one of the bullet holes. Angela came over to Sweets' head and knelt down on the ground.

"Sweetie can you hear me?" Angela said trying to sound calm.

Hodgins came up beside Angela and placed his hands on Sweets' left shoulder trying to stop the bleeding from yet another bullet.

Sweets had his eyes open and he blinked a few times trying to get his eyes to focus and his mind to focus. He could hear Angela but it sounded so far away. Angela had pulled out a cell phone and called 9-1-1.

"Yes I need an ambulance to the Founding Fathers my friend has been shot." Angela said with worry and quickly. "He has four gunshot wounds we're trying to slow the bleeding down. Ok thank-you." Angela hung up as she spoke to the rest of them. "Ambulance is on the way, just hang on Sweets."

"Lo…locas." Sweets said, but they could barely hear him at all and his words were slurred.

"Don't try and talk right now Sweets just hang on." Booth said in a serious voice.

"Locas." Sweets said a little louder.

"Locas?" Angela asked.

"Two of them." Sweets forced out through the pain.

"Don't worry we'll get them. Just hang on Sweets you don't stop fighting." Booth said.

With the added pressure of their hands Sweets begun to move around from the pain getting increasingly worse.

"Sweets you need to stay still." Bones said in a serious and detached voice. She was trying not to think about her friend and uncle to her daughter bleeding out on the side of the street.

"Hurts." Sweets said with pain clear in his voice.

"I know it hurts buddy, but you gotta stay still. Help is on the way man." Hodgins said not even bothering to hide the worry in his voice.

"Sweets look at me." Booth said when Sweets was having a hard time not moving still.

Sweets looked to his right to see Booth beside him still trying to stop the bleeding. Sweets could see the worry and fear in Booth's eyes and Sweets knew that it was bad.

"I know it hurts, but you can take it. I can hear the sirens now and the paramedics will give you something for the pain when they get here. You are going to be okay, but you need to stay still. I don't know if there are any of the bullets in you and if you move around it could cause the bullets to move and make you bleed more. Keep your eyes on me and stay still you can do this Lance." Booth said in a serious voice.

Hearing Booth use his first name for the first time in five years did the trick for Sweets. He stopped moving and just focused on breathing and keeping his eyes on Booth. If he focused he could hear the sirens and he could hear them getting closer. Sweets knew that he just needed to get to the hospital and then the doctors would be able to fix him up. He had to stay positive, because if he didn't Sweets didn't want to think about what the outcome could be. He had to stay positive and hope for the best, because he wasn't done yet. He wasn't ready to leave this world yet so he had to fight and he had to stay positive and just hope all of the good he had done for the world would be repaid to him.

"You're gonna be okay. The ambulance will take you to the hospital and we'll all be there for when you wake up. We can bring Christine by to visit her Uncle Sweets. She's really missed you in the past few weeks." Booth said trying to keep Sweets' eyes on him.

"He's right she's even asked about you. She says Unci Sweets. We need to do another family dinner." Bones said trying to ignore the slight burn behind her eyes as tears tried to build up.

The ambulance pulled up to the curb and two paramedics got out. The one male paramedic ran over to them while the female paramedic went to the back of the ambulance to get the stretcher and bag.

"Look out." The male paramedic said to Booth as he came up beside him.

Booth moved back to let the paramedic do what he needed to get done.

"He's got four gunshot wounds, two to his stomach, one to his left shoulder and one to the left side of his chest." Cam said as the female paramedic came over.

"I need some pressure dressing." The male paramedic said.

The female paramedic took out pressure dressing for herself and her partner. She handed some over to her partner as she took Cam's place. As both paramedics pushed down on the gunshot wounds Sweets cried out in pain.

"Let's push five of morphine to help take the edge off until we can get him to the hospital." The male paramedic ordered.

"Got it." The female paramedic went into the bag and got out what she needed. She gave Sweets the morphine and then she started an I.V. line before so moved on to the next gunshot wound on the left of Sweets' chest while the male paramedic went to the left shoulder.

"Shouldn't you be doing more than putting some dressing on his injuries?" Angela asked as she was pushed aside as well.

"We can't fix his injuries. He needs surgery and our best chances of getting him there alive is to try and slow this bleeding down while we get him there." The male paramedic said.

The morphine was kicking in rather quickly and Sweets found that it was helping, but it wasn't enough to knock him out. That didn't stop the blackness trying to close in on him once again. He was getting lightheaded and dizzy from the blood loss and Sweets knew that it wouldn't matter how hard he fought to keep his eyes open he would soon lose the fight.

"Grab the backboard." The male paramedic said to his partner.

She grabbed the backboard off from the stretcher and she waited until her partner rolled Sweets onto his side and she slid the board underneath him before her partner put Sweets back onto his back.

"Let's get him to the hospital." The male paramedic said as they both grabbed an end of the board and lifted Sweets up and onto the stretcher.

"Can someone come with you?" Bones asked.

"One person." The male paramedic said as they got Sweets over to the ambulance.

"Booth you should go." Angela said.

"No Cam should. If something happens you could help them keep Sweets alive." Booth said as he looked at Cam.

"You're a doctor?" The male paramedic asked as they got Sweets into the ambulance.

"I'm a Pathologist, but yes I'm a doctor." Cam said.

"Then you're the one coming. Ellen has to drive and I might need a second set of hands if he crashes." The male paramedic said.

"What hospital?" Booth asked as Cam got into the ambulance.

"General West is the closest." Ellen said as she started to close the doors.

"We'll meet you there." Bones said as Ellen shut the doors and ran to get into the driver side.

They watched as the ambulance left with lights and sirens before they all went back into the bar to pay their bills and grab their things. Once they had their coats they took off for their cars and then took off for the hospital. Angela and Hodgins drove behind Booth and Bones, because Booth turned his own lights and sirens on too and took off as fast as he could to get to the hospital.

"I'll call my dad and let him know that we won't be home." Bones said as she pulled out her phone.

"He's going to be just fine Bones. He's going to be just fine." Booth said trying to sound comforting, but it was clear that even he wasn't sure of that outcome.

"Dad hi." Bones said once her father picked up.

"Hey Sweetie. Calling to check in already. Listen Christine is just fine she's watching her movie right now with me curled up on the couch." Max said with a smile.

"Dad listen something has happened." Bones said as she cut off Max.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Max asked with concern.

"We're fine, but it's Sweets. He's been shot. We're on the way to the hospital right now, but I don't know when we'll be home." Bones said with worry edging her voice.

"Oh God. Is he going to be okay?" Max asked with concern and relief to his voice knowing that Bones was safe and unharmed.

"I don't know he was shot just outside of the Founding Fathers while we were inside. He's got four gunshot wounds and he's lost a lot of blood. We're on the way to the hospital now behind the ambulance."

"Listen, don't worry about Christine I'll get her to bed and I'll be here until you get home. Just worry about Sweets. I'm sure he's going to be okay he's a tough kid." Max said trying to sound comforting, but even he knew that four gunshot wounds was not something that someone could easily recover from.

"Thanks I really appreciate it Dad."

"Keep me updated on Sweets."

"I will I promise."

"He's going to be alright Sweetie think positive thoughts."

"Thanks Dad. I should go we'll be arriving at the hospital soon. Give Christine a kiss for us."

"I will and if you need anything you just call."

"I will thanks. Bye Dad."

"Good bye Sweetie."

Bones hung up the phone as she spoke. "He's going to stay with Christine. He said that they are curled up on the couch watching one of Christine's movies."

"Good, that's good. He'll take good care of her you know that."

"I know. It's just the image in my mind. It reminds me of that time when Sweets watched Christine for us so we could go out to dinner. We had come back home and found Christine asleep on Sweets' chest while he was laying down on the couch sound asleep." Bones said as more tears built up in her eyes.

"Ya I remember. You wanted to move her and I told you to leave them like that. That she was safe and comfortable laying on Sweets. You put a blanket over them and to ease your worry I put the baby monitor down beside them on the table." Booth added.

"She didn't wake up once that night. The first night in over two months that she had slept all night. We got up the next morning to go to work and Sweets was already up he had changed her, dressed her and had even made all of us breakfast. It was the first time that I truly saw how much he had become a part of our family. He went from being a therapist to being a very crucial part of our family." Bones said as a few tears escaped from her eyes.

"He's our baby duck. That's why we need to keep positive thoughts and have faith that this world is not going to take him from us. He's tough a lot tougher than people give him credit for he'll pull through this and we'll be there to help him through this."

"Yes we will. I'm not going to make the mistake in giving him space for weeks this time. He's not going to deal with this on his own." Bones said as she wiped her cheeks.

They pulled into the emergency room entrance of the hospital and parked in the first spot they could find. They both got out of the car with Hodgins and Angela getting out of theirs. The four of them ran into the emergency room entrance and over to where Cam was standing by a room. They looked into the window and saw that Sweets was now intubated and had a doctor and nurses working on him.

"How is he?" Booth asked.

"The paramedic intubated Sweets on the way here when his breathing became too laboured. They need to operate on him they are just getting him ready for the surgery." Cam said with a shaky voice.

They watched as the doctor and nurses got Sweets ready for surgery and five minutes later the door was opened and a nurse walked out first with the doctor and the other nurses wheeling Sweets out of the room.

"We need to get him down to surgery. You can wait in the waiting room and when the surgery is complete Doctor Roberts will come to inform you of the progress." The nurse said.

"What are his chances?" Bones asked.

"I can't give you that all I can tell you is that he is young and otherwise healthy. The surgery will take at least five hours. I suggest you go into the waiting room and when we have an update a nurse will come and inform you." The nurse said before she took off down the hallway and into the elevator as they loaded Sweets onto it.

All they could do was stand there in silence unmoving as they watched the elevator door closed cutting off their view of their friend. They stood there for a few minutes before Cam's calm and soft voice broke the silence.

"We should go and wait in the waiting room. We can't do anything right now for Sweets."

They didn't say anything to Cam, but they all turned to walk down the hallway to the waiting room. Angela and Hodgins sat down holding hands. Cam and Bones both sat down across from them while Booth couldn't stop pacing. They were alone in the waiting room so they were thankful for that.

"Is there someone we should be calling? His parents?" Angela asked.

"His parents died two weeks before he started working for the FBI. We're all he has." Bones said sadly.

"What about the Interns? Should we be calling them?" Hodgins asked.

"I'll call Arastoo and let him know. He can call the others, but I don't think it's a good idea for them to come down. There isn't anything they can do and there is no point in having everyone here just sitting around and worrying." Cam said.

"It's getting late at night they might be sleeping." Bones said.

"I'll call in a minute." Cam said.

"I need to call Caroline and let her know what happened. I also need to call Hacker. We need to get these punks." Booths said with anger as he pulled out his cell phone and called Caroline first after three rings she answered.

"Hello?" Caroline's voice was a little rough and Booth figured she was just about to fall asleep. It was only ten, but it was still late considering the hours they work.

"Caroline something has happened to Sweets." Booth started.

"Sweets? What the hell happened to him? He didn't get arrested did he?" Caroline asked with a normal voice, but Booth had known her for many years he could hear the concern in her voice.

"He's been shot. We're all at the hospital right now. He's in surgery." Booth said straight out. He knew how much Caroline didn't like it when someone beat around the bush.

"Shot? Is he going to make it? What happened?" Caroline asked now fully awake and alert.

"We were at the Founding Fathers and Sweets left. We heard the shots from inside and when we went out Sweets was on the ground. He's got four gunshot wounds he said it was Estrellas Locas that there were two of them. Sweets was seen at the community center and when we went to their turf they would have known he was law enforcement. Then a day later their library is being raided and they are losing millions in drugs, money and guns." Booth said and Caroline cut him off.

"You think they put out a hit on Sweets thinking he was the one to give up the information and not Havier. Good enough for me I'll get the Judge on the phone and get warrants for a total clean house and I'll fax them over to Hacker."

"I'm calling him right now and informing him of the situation. I want these guys that shot Sweets I don't care how many Locas I have to bring in." Booth said with anger.

"I'll get the warrants Cherie you just make sure Hacker is ready."

"You got it."

"Booth, keep me updated on Sweets. He's too young and too good to die." Caroline said with worry and honesty all in her voice.

"I know. I'll let you know as soon as we do."

"Get those bastards Cherie."

"I promise you that." Booth said with determination and anger in his voice.

Booth hung up and spoke to the others as he dialed Hacker's number.

"Caroline is going to get a warrant to clean house."

"Clean house?" Angela asked confused.

"It means we can search every member's house, car and make arrests. We'll bring the whole gang in until we have the two members that shot Sweets." Booth answered as Hacker's phone rung. After the fourth ring Hacker answered.

"Hacker." Hacker said with his normal voice so Booth knew that he at least was still up.

"Hacker it's Booth. Sweets has been shot." Booth said all business.

"Shot what do you mean shot? Where? When?" Hacker asked with confusion.

"Less than an hour ago outside of the Founding Fathers. He took four gunshot wounds. My guess is it was a drive-by shooting. Sweets didn't say much but he did say it was Estrellas Locas and there were two of them. I just spoke to Caroline and she is getting a Judge to sign a clean house warrant."

"I'll get a tactical unit together and ready for when the warrant comes in. How is Sweets doing?"

"They just took him down to surgery we won't know anything for a few hours."

"Keep me updated and I will let you know when we have the gang members. I'm assuming you want to do the interviews."

"You're damn right I do." Booth said with anger.

"I'll round them all up and they can sit for the night. The interviews can wait until Sweets is out of surgery."

"Alright just keep me posted please."

"I will. Give my best to everyone there."

"I will."

"We'll get these bastards Booth."

"You're damn right we will." Booth said before he hung up ending the call.

"Hacker is going to get a unit together to go and make the arrests and searches. He's going to hold everyone overnight until I can get there to do the interviews." Booth said to everyone else.

"Good at least something is being done." Bones said.

"You know I can't just sit here for five hours doing nothing. I need to do something." Angela said as she got up and it was clear she was anxious.

"There isn't anything we can do right now Ang." Hodgins said calmly.

"I'm um… I'm gonna go to his place and pack a bag for him. That way when he wakes up he can have some comforts there for him." Angela said.

"I think he would really appreciate that." Cam said with a smile.

"I'll come with you." Hodgins said.

"No it's fine I just need to go for a drive and be alone right now. Does anyone have a key?" Angela said.

"Ya I do." Booth said as he pulled out his keys from his pocket and removed the spare key that Sweets had given to him just in case.

Angela took the key and then went over to Hodgins.

"You don't mind do you?" Angela asked with concern.

Hodgins stood up and pulled Angela into a hug before he spoke.

"It's alright I understand. I love you."

"I love you too." Angela said before she gave Hodgins a simple kiss on the lips before she grabbed her purse and headed out of the hospital.

Cam pulled out her cell phone before she stood up.

"I'm going to call Arastoo and let him know." Cam said before she turned to head outside so she could make the call.

The night air was getting cooler out as the months got closer to fall. Cam took a moment and leaned against the wall trying to catch her breath. Sweets had just been gunned down in the street all because he wanted to help a young boy not end up in jail or murdered. He wanted to make a difference in the world and try and save people from making life altering mistakes and this is what he got in return of that. He got four gunshot wounds. It wasn't fair and he didn't deserve it. Sweets was just that he was sweet and a good person. He would never do anything to hurt someone and he went out of his way to try and help people, to save them. Sweets didn't believe in giving up on someone and he had worked hard to help not only Agents, but her friends and family. He didn't deserve this. Cam let out a long breath before she turned her attention back to her phone. She called Arastoo and after three rings he answered.

"Hello."

"Arastoo, hello. Did I wake you?" Cam asked stalling for time. She didn't know if she could get the words out.

"No I was just reading. Is everything alright?" Arastoo asked with concern in his voice.

"Um no, no everything is not alright. Um Sweets has been shot." Cam said with sadness in her voice.

"Shot? Is he alright?" Arastoo asked with alarm.

"He's in surgery. He was shot outside of the Founding Fathers. He took four bullets, two to the stomach, one to his left shoulder and the fourth was to the left side of his chest. It was really close to his heart."

"Oh no. What hospital are you in I'll come down right now."

"It's alright you don't have to come down. It's going to be hours before we even hear anything. You have your doctorial to focus on. I'll call and keep you updated, but I just wanted to let you know."

"Are you sure? I don't have a problem coming down and being there with you."

"I know you don't and I appreciate it, but there is no point in both of us sitting here all night just waiting. Everyone is here with me. Booth already called Caroline and Hacker and they are working on making the arrests. I'll speak to Caroline so we can do the processing of Sweets' clothing and any video footage we can find. I just I can't believe his been shot. He's such a good man.

"He is a good man and I have to have faith that the world will look out for him and keep him here with us. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Could you let the other Interns know for me please? Just let them know what happened and that they can stay home and we will call with updates."

"I'll let them know don't worry about it. Call me if you need anything or you change your mind about me staying home."

"I will and I really appreciate it."

"I love you."

"I love you too. I should get back in there with the others."

"OK I will pray for him and hopefully he is alright."

"I hope so. Goodbye."

"Goodbye my love."

Cam hung up her cell phone and took a few more minutes to stand outside trying to catch her breath. She hated when someone she cared about was hurt, but especially like this. There was nothing she could do, but wait for someone else to keep Sweets alive. She hated not being able to be helpful and having to sit around waiting for news. It's all she could do though so with a heavy heart she took a deep breath and headed back inside to wait with the others.

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It was three hours later when Booth's cell phone rung. They had all been sitting there just waiting for someone to come out and give them an update, but so far no one had. They had already done one coffee run and Angela had come back two hours ago with a small black duffle bag with some clothes for Sweets. She didn't know what to grab so she grabbed him his tooth brush, a brush, deodorant and some sweats and t-shirts. She also grabbed him a pair of jeans for when he left. She didn't know what to grab or how long he was going to be in the hospital so she figured she would grab a few things and if he needed more she could go back for it. Booth pulled out his phone.

"Booth."

"Agent Booth this is Detective Richards. I've been told to call you when we have found human remains."

"Ya look now is not a good time Detective."

"I'm sorry Sir, but we have eleven bodies all burnt to the bone. If you could just have someone come down to handle the bodies. We have an arsenic case right now and all of these people were found by the firefighters once the fire was out."

"Alright what's the address?"

"1842 Christopher Street it's in Georgetown."

"What apartment number?" Booth asked with haste to his voice.

"The whole building is gone. A detective within the fire department is coming down to the scene to see how the fire started, but it was clearly arsenic or a bomb. There is nothing left of the building and no one survived."

"I want that scene sealed off and no one goes in it. Do you understand me?" Booth said in a serious voice.

"Yes Sir."

"I'll have a team there within the hour. Nothing gets touched not by anyone not even a fire fighter do you understand me?" Booth ordered.

"Yes Sir." Detective Richards said with a slightly unsure voice as to why it was such an issue, but he wasn't about to argue with Booth's tone of voice.

Booth hung up the phone as Bones spoke.

"Booth, what's wrong?" Bones asked with worry.

"That was Detective Richards. He's on scene right now of an apartment building fire. It was Sweets apartment building."

"His apartment was on fire?" Angela asked shocked.

"Not just his apartment the whole building. The fire department thinks it was either arsenic or a bomb. There are only twelve people who live in that building including Sweets and his two roommates. They have eleven bodies all burnt to the bone. They need someone to come down and handle it." Booth said.

"Eleven, but that would mean that Sweets is the only survivor of the fire." Hodgins said.

"Or the other tenants had friends over. We can't be sure that everyone who is dead lived there. We need to investigate." Bones said.

"I'll call the Interns they can all head over and handle the bodies. This can't be a coincidence that Sweets gets gunned down and then his apartment is set on fire." Cam said.

"Ya, but it's been three hours since he's been shot. The gang members who shot him would have already told their boss, so why set his building on fire?" Hodgins asked.

"They wouldn't. There's no logic to that." Bones said.

"Which leaves only one option. Someone is targeting Sweets and they expected him to be in that apartment only he was gunned down before he could get there." Booth said.

"Who would target Sweets though? He's a Profiler he doesn't arrest people." Angela said.

"No, but he is very well known in the country and he has been responsible for putting criminals in jail with just his profiles alone. There are probably a lot of people who blame him." Cam said.

"I need to call Hacker and let him know. When I am not here he'll need Agents posted here until we can figure out what is going on." Booth said as he pulled out his phone and stood up.

"I'll call the Interns and get them over to the apartment building." Cam said as she did the same as Booth, but went in the opposite direction.

Booth called Hacker and when he answered he didn't even give him the chance to speak.

"Hacker, Sweets apartment building was set on fire. Detective Richards just called me to inform me that there are eleven burnt bodies that the fire department found. They suspect either arsenic or a bomb."

"Holy God. Who is on scene?"

"Cam is calling the Interns to go down there and collect the bodies. I want our own team to do the forensics and not the local police. I'm going to be here all night and then in the morning until we know more I want an Agent posted outside of Sweets' hospital room."

"I'll have a team go over to the building and I will have an Agent on guard. It's insane around here I have guys picking up Locas members still and we are trying to keep them all separated. I have to go let me know what happens when Sweets is out of surgery."

"Will do."

Booth hung up the phone before he spoke. "Hacker is having a team going over to the building to get whatever there might be."

"I want to see the bodies." Bones said.

"I know, but we can't right now. We need to be here for Sweet." Booth said.

"When we know that Sweets is alright I can go down and start to look for any evidence of a bomb or particulates that might help us catch this bastard." Hodgins said.

"Would the landlord maybe have pictures of his tenants?" Angela asked.

"I don't know, but maybe reach out to him and see if he has any information on them that could help us make IDs." Booth said.

"I'll do that." Angela said.

Cam came back and spoke once she was back inside the waiting room.

"I spoke to Clark he is going to run the scene for now until Dr. Brennan is able to go over the bodies. He is going to call all of the interns in and they will start processing everything."

"This is crazy. If he hadn't gotten shot he would have been in his apartment. He would have been dead and not lying on an operating table fighting for his life right now." Hodgins said.

"It's unreal." Angela said.

"All we can do is keep positive and focused. We need to know who this person is that is targeting Sweets." Cam said.

"Ya, but he's been shot he took four bullets and when he wakes up he's going to find out that eleven people that he might have known are dead. That his apartment is completely destroyed along with everything he owned. Where is he even going to go once he can leave?" Angela asked with hurt clear in her voice.

"He's coming home with us until we can catch this son of a bitch. I'm not going to leave him out there alone and on his own unable to defend himself when this guy strikes again." Booth said with anger.

"We'll find him Booth we always do." Bones said in a serious voice.

"I know we will, but look at what has happened in just tonight Bones. He doesn't deserve this. He just wants to make a difference in the world and help people. He's the most pure hearted person out of all of us and he's got four bullets in him and now no home. It's not right." Booth said with a shake of his head.

They all couldn't help, but agree with him. This wasn't fair to do to someone, especially someone as kind and gentle as Sweets. He was just a good man and he just wanted to help people. He didn't deserve to be shot or have his apartment blown up or set on fire. They all sat there for another three hours before a doctor and a man in a suit finally came over to them. They all stood up and went over to both men.

"Family of Dr. Sweets?" Dr. Roberts asked.

"Yes that is us. How is he doing Doctor?" Cam asked calmly.

"I'm Dr. Roberts and this is an associate Dr. Wright he is a psychiatrist here within the hospital. We have a lot to discuss, but first and most importantly Dr. Sweets is alive and I am expecting him to make a full recovery." Dr. Roberts said.

"Oh thank God." Angela said relieved.

"That is good news." Bones said.

"He will have a long road to recovery ahead of him. He was shot four times, twice to his stomach, once to the left side of his chest and one to his left shoulder. The bullet to his left shoulder was a through and through so there was minimal damage. He did not even need surgery, but the bullet did hit his bone and it caused it to fracture. His left arm is in a sling right now and will need to be for four weeks or so. The bullet to his left side of his chest missed his heart by two millimeters. He was very lucky. That bullet was not a through and through so we had to operate and remove the bullet as well as repair the damage done to his lung. The bullet collapsed his lung on the way to the hospital hence the need to be intubated. He is on oxygen right now, but he does not need a ventilator unless his oxygen levels drop, which I don't see happening. The two bullets to his stomach were also not a through and through, we had to operate to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. The one bullet hit his spleen and the damage was too great I had to remove it. With removing his spleen he will need to be on a medication to help clot his blood, but otherwise he will be fine without his spleen. The second bullet was lodged in his right kidney. I was able to remove the bullet and repair his kidney successfully. He won't be experiencing any complications from it." Dr. Roberts said.

"Is that it? He doesn't have any more injuries right?" Angela asked hoping that Sweets didn't have to worry about anything else.

"He has a mild concussion from the back of his head hitting the pavement when he went down. He was also grazed by a few other bullets. His right bicep was graved and required ten stiches, his left wrist held a through and through on the left edge of his wrist. It fractured and I had to place his wrist in a brace. He took another graze to his fifth and sixth ribs on his right side, the graze required twenty stitches and it cracked both ribs. That is the last of his physical injuries." Dr. Roberts said.

"So he took seven bullets technically then." Hodgins said sadly.

"Technically speaking yes he was hit by seven bullets." Dr. Roberts said calmly.

"I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan, I would like to see all of Dr. Sweets X-Rays please." Bones said calmly.

"I normally would not give out any scans or X-Rays without my patient's consent; however, I have heard of you and in this situation I am sure that Dr. Sweets would not object to it. I'll allow you to see his X-Rays, I'll bring them to his room for you." Dr. Roberts said.

"Thank-you I appreciate that." Bones said.

"What is Dr. Wright doing here then?" Booth asked slightly on guard that Dr. Roberts brought a psychiatrist with him.

"It is my understanding that Dr. Sweets is a psychologist. Dr. Roberts thought that it would be best for myself to speak to you about Dr. Sweets' mental and emotional health." Dr. Wright said calmly.

"What from being shot?" Hodgins asked slightly confused.

"I'll leave you to it Dr. Wright. I'll have those X-Rays in Dr. Sweets' room for you Dr. Brennan." Dr. Roberts said before he turned to leave them alone with Dr. Wright.

"Being shot is a traumatic event; however, it is not my main concern. I've gone through Dr. Sweets' medical records and it gives me cause for concern. Dr. Sweets has insomnia, has had it since he was four from the reports when he was six. Based on blood work and normal testing Dr. Sweets has not slept more than five hours within the past two weeks, and none within the past three days. His insomnia has flared up within the past few months. Has something traumatic happened to him during that time? Stress at work?" Dr. Wright asked calmly.

"Wait hold up. You're saying that Sweets has insomnia, has had it since he was four. That's not possible. He lived with Bones and me for six months. He didn't have trouble sleeping, he never seemed more tired than a normal person would with a little kid in the house." Booth said in Sweets' defense.

"He didn't show any physical signs of insomnia or stress. I would have seen it." Bones said.

"I'm not saying you have missed anything. It's quite possible that his insomnia wasn't flaring up during those months that he lived with you. The more likely scenario is that he just hid it from you. Whether that is by staying up in his room all night or working extremely late to push off sleep longer and to give himself an excuse as to why he was more tired the following day. I do see that he has a prescription for a sleeping pill, but that was prescribed to him three months ago and he has not had it refilled telling me that he rarely takes it if he takes it at all. I want to state right now though, that this does not make him unstable in any way. It's just reaching a dangerous level with sleep deprivation. He hasn't had enough rem sleep in the past two weeks and that can cause an effect on his emotions and logical thinking. Has something happened within the past three months to flare the insomnia?" Dr. Wright asked again trying to get a picture of Sweets' life.

"Two FBI Agents were killed by a serial killer who is still on the loose. They were killed by using knowledge that Dr. Sweets had within some papers he wrote. He blames himself for it." Cam answered.

"That makes sense based on his past. I cannot divulge what I have read in his files, but I can tell you that he has had this since he was four. In situations like that the only reason a small child develops insomnia is through a traumatic experience or traumatic stressful situations. If I had to take an educated guess I would say that Dr. Sweets is an insomniac not because he simply can't fall asleep which is common for most insomniacs. In Dr. Sweets' case I would say that he is afraid of what he will see when he falls asleep. Those nightmare that flare up from different situations that trigger a memory cause nightmares. Those nightmares are too difficult to see over and over again so Dr. Sweets is afraid to fall asleep at what he will see. He simply stays awake even though he is a trained professional and knows it's dangerous to deny himself sleep. He does it anyways though, because the nightmares and memories are just too painful to handle." Dr. Wright said.

"So what he needs therapy to try and overcome whatever it is that he is seeing." Hodgins asked trying to understand where Dr. Wright was going.

"Therapy could help and I wouldn't not encourage him to speak to someone. However, the problem is Dr. Sweets is a psychologist and from what I have read about him he is very well-known and established. He knows logically what he needs to do, what he would recommend to a patient. Emotionally though, he can't bring himself to take those steps just like other patients can't. In all fairness to him, there isn't any therapy that would make the nightmares stop. He has suffered irreversible trauma from when he was a young child. There is nothing any doctor could tell him that would make that better and I believe he knows that which is why he isn't in therapy himself. He will always be damaged from what happened when he was so young, with that being said though he is far from broken. He's a well accomplished psychologist and profiler. He obviously has people in his life who love and care about him and from what I have heard from other doctors here, he's a very happy and loving man. He just has more demons than the average person." Dr. Wright said.

"So what do we do? Get him to take his sleeping pills?" Angela asked trying to see how she could help her friend.

"Sleeping pills will make the nightmares stop; however, they will make someone dependent on them to sleep. I'm assuming that is why Dr. Sweets hasn't been taking them very often, because he doesn't want to be unable to sleep without them. As well as, and this is just an educated guess, taking a pill has become difficult for his mind to handle. To you and I it's as simple as taking a pill and going to sleep. Only Dr. Sweets fears sleep and probably experiences some level of anxiety about having to sleep. By having to take a sleeping pill he knows it will put him to sleep and logic doesn't always win out. The fear of taking the pill and having a nightmare and not being able to wake up will give him anxiety and make him not take the pill. To Dr. Sweets taking a simple pill would be as challenging and difficult as if you were told to climb Mount Everest. Dr. Sweets is not someone I would suggest to ever truly live alone. He should have roommates until he gets married that would be my suggestion, because Dr. Sweets clearly cares a lot about people and the majority of psychologists do. It's why they are very good at what they do. It's why Dr. Sweets is very talented in what he does. He cares so much about people that he neglects his own needs. He wants to help people and make a difference it's very clear in his work. But he neglects what he needs, like proper sleep, eating habits, down time, etc. He could live alone and I know he has in the past before, but that's not what I would recommend that he does. It's all too easy for him to forget to eat or to forget to sleep. It's all too easy for him to move on to the next file, the next patient. He uses work as an excuse as to not take care of himself, because he is too busy taking care of other people." Dr. Wright said.

"He's right. Think about it before he lived with you both he was living alone. How many times have we seen him and he had bags under his eyes, he said he was working late, he skipped lunch and he just looked run down? Then he lived with you both for six months and he seemed happier and less tired and overwhelmed. Living alone affected him, even though he had been living alone since he was nineteen." Cam said.

"You have a small child you said correct?" Dr. Wright asked Booth.

"Ya we have a toddler she was just a year old when he moved in after a break-up." Booth answered.

"He was great with her, he still is." Bones said.

"Living with you and your child forced him into a routine. You had to make dinner because you needed to feed your daughter. He looked after her instead of staying later at work. He wasn't adding more stress from extra cases, he was sleeping better because he wasn't stressing and alone with his demons all the time. Having your daughter would have made him feel like he had a true purpose that he could see each and every day. He was there for her, he helped take care of her. In a sense living with you gave him a sanctuary where he didn't have to deal with his demons alone; he didn't have to come home to an empty house after a bad day. He was a part of a family in a positive environment. It would have made him stronger. Now he is suffering through the blame that he feels from the death of those two FBI Agents. It would have triggered some painful memories for him and he's just trying to deal with it. Unfortunately he's gone back into old bad habits of dealing with it alone instead of reaching out to the people who care about him. " Dr. Wright said.

"He should have come to us with this instead of trying to avoid it by taking leave from work and working someplace else." Booth said annoyed and frustrated with the situation.

"He wasn't alone though, he was living with two roommates. Maybe he was trying to handle it on his own." Cam said.

"Until I speak to Dr. Sweets I will not be able to know what his thought process was. I would recommend that he is placed within an outpatient facility so he can go through therapy and treatment to try and overcome what the trauma is. I would not recommend giving him his badge and gun back until he has completed a treatment program." Dr. Wright said.

"You want us to have him committed?" Booth asked with seething anger.

"To an outpatient program where he could leave at night and be there daily. I'm suggesting that you speak to him about it as will I, but as his friends if you feel that he is at risk you can have him forcefully committed to the program until he is well. You must think about his mental and emotional health and not just his physical health." Dr. Wright argued.

"With all your respect Dr. Wright, but we are not about to have Dr. Sweets committed. You don't know him like we do. He may have trouble sleeping and that is a problem, but not one that needs therapy for. He has family and we will speak to him and help him through this. We are not about to abandon him to some facility. Like you said Dr. Sweets is the best in the country and he is well aware of what needs to be done. He's at no risk to his life or anyone else's and when he is able to leave he will be staying with family until he is well. Now if that is all you have to say we would like to go and see our family member so if you would be so kind to tell us what room he is in that would be appreciated." Cam said in a serious and authoritative voice.

"For his sake I hope you change your mind. Dr. Sweets is in room 516 and I will be speaking to him before he leaves this hospital and it will be my judgement if he is a danger to himself." Dr. Wright said before he turned to leave the waiting room.

"What an ass." Hodgins said clearly angry at the doctor for what he said about Sweets.

"Ass or not he did let us know that Sweets has been having some trouble since the last incident with Pelant. We need to keep an eye on Sweets and make sure he isn't neglecting himself." Cam said.

"And we will, but we don't need to have him sent off to some facility. He has us and we can get through it together Cam." Angela said.

"And I agree. Sweets isn't unstable or at risk to himself. He's just having some trouble right now and I think it's a good thing that he will be staying with you two." Cam said as she looked at Booth and Bones. "Given the situation is not what I had hoped, but if he is having trouble being around you both and Christine might be what he needs to get passed everything recently." Cam finished.

"We'll keep an eye on him and help him through this. It's what family does and Christine loves having him there. She's really missed him in the past few weeks." Bones said.

"We'll get him through this. He's one of the best shrinks in the country he knows what he needs to do he just needs some support to do it that's all." Booth said.

"Come on let's go see him even if he won't be awake yet." Angela said.

"Once he wakes up then I'll head to the lab and start working on particulates from the bodies. I might have to go to the scene though for more." Hodgins said.

"I've already let everyone know that this is your scene so it won't be released until you tell me otherwise." Booth said as they all started to head down the hallway and to the elevator to go up to the fifth floor.

"Good, because I don't trust those idiots at the FBI." Hodgins said.

"They are not that incompetent." Cam said as they got onto the elevator.

"No jus not as competent as me. I don't want to risk them missing something, not this time." Hodgins said.

"In the morning I can go and speak to store owners and see if they have any video footage of Sweets' apartment. I know there is a coffee shop across the street that has cameras outside. I might be able to see who destroyed Sweets' place." Angela said.

"Good. Let's just keep this between us for now. I don't want Sweets to know just yet. He just got shot and almost died he doesn't need to stress over this just yet." Booth said as they got off the elevator and started to walk down the hallway.

"He's going to find out sooner or later Booth." Bones said.

"I know and I'll tell him about it, but not just yet. Let him sleep for a day or two before we destroy what is left of his life." Booth said.

"I agree we should give Sweets a couple of days to rest up after being shot. Then we can tell him when we have a little bit more information. Let's give it two days and see what we have before we tell him." Cam said.

"How long will he be in the hospital for?" Angela asked.

"Most likely a week at most. It depends on how he is healing from the surgery." Bones answered as they arrived at room 516.

Booth placed his hand on the doorknob and after taking a breath he opened the door and they walked in. There on the bed was Sweets. He had an oxygen mask on just like the doctor had said. He wasn't wearing a shirt, but his chest was covered in bandages from the surgery and his ribs. He was hooked up to machines to monitor his heart and oxygen levels. He was also hooked up to an I.V for fluids. Booth couldn't help, but think how young he looked laying in this hospital bed. Even though he was twenty-eight he still had a young look to him and seeing him lying in this hospital bed was painful to see.

"God he looks so young." Hodgins said exactly what Booth was thinking.

"He's going to be okay." Angela said trying to sound comforting.

Bones went over to the foot of the bed where his chart was while Cam went over to his left side and Booth over to his right side. Bones picked up the chart and looked through it.

"Everything looks good. The surgery was extensive, but his heart didn't stop so that's a good sign. Assuming no infections come up he will probably be able to leave in a week." Bones said as she flipped through his chart before she picked up the x-rays next.

She looked through them holding each one up to the light so she could see it clearly. The others could see the hurt on her face as she flipped from one x-ray to the second and then the third.

"Bones, what's wrong? Did they miss something?" Booth asked with concern.

"No, no they didn't. The fractures look good, it's just. There are only three x-rays, his ribs on the right side, his left shoulder and his left wrist. Three x-rays and just from these x-rays I can see he has forty-three remodeling on his bones. It's just a lot of broken bones and fractures to someone, especially to someone who was a child when it happened. There's only three x-rays." Bones said with hurt all throughout her voice as she put the x-rays back down where his chart was kept.

They were all silent for a moment as they looked at Sweets. None of them would have ever thought Sweets had been abused as a child. He was so happy and full of life. He just wanted to help people and live his life. It was rare for someone who had been abused as a child, especially as severe as he had been to be so happy and kind.

"I knew he was adopted, but I never knew he was abused. He spoke so highly of his parents." Angela said softly.

"It wasn't his parents it was from a foster father. It could have been from more than one. He did say he was in four foster homes by the time he was six, but I don't know when he went into the system." Bones said.

"I don't either, it's not something we have ever talked about. He doesn't like talking about it. He'll talk all day to someone as long as he doesn't have to talk about something that is bothering him. He's good at that." Booth said.

"He has us to be there for him now." Cam said.

"Is that why he has the insomnia? From being abused?" Angela asked.

"I believe so, but he doesn't talk about it." Bones said sadly.

"Now we wait for the real healing to begin." Hodgins said.

"If you guys want to go home to Michael you can. He's going to be asleep for a few hours and even then he won't be awake for long." Bones said to Hodgins and Angela.

"Bones is right. You should get some sleep and then in the morning you'll be awake enough to go through the evidence." Booth said.

"I don't know. I don't feel right just leaving him like this." Angela said.

"We'll be here for him all night. Cam you should go as well. It's going to be nuts tomorrow with the bodies." Bones said.

"I'll stay for a little while longer before I head home for some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be insane with work, but I don't want to leave just yet." Cam said.

"We'll stay for a little while as well before we go home and let the sitter leave." Hodgins said.

Angela, Hodgins and Cam had stayed for an hour before they had decided to call it a night and head home. Angela and Hodgins wanted to get home to Michael to relieve the sitter. Cam headed home to get some sleep so she was able to function tomorrow morning. She knew that the interns would be up all night working with the bodies and tomorrow she would have to send them home in shifts to get some sleep before having them continue. Eleven bodies was not going to be easy especially because they were in a fire so it was going to be more work for everyone. It was three hours after Sweets was released from surgery did he start to wake up. Bones and Booth had been sitting on either side of him just waiting for when he would wake up. They were tired, but they weren't about to leave Sweets alone. They were all he had and even though they didn't like him when they first met him that had changed over the last few years. They had gotten to know Sweets on a personal level and they had found out small painful things about him. They still didn't know very much about his past, but they knew him as the man was he was today and they had both seen him grow over the years they had known him. He was no longer the twenty-two year old he was now a twenty-eight year old Agent. He was not just a profiler anymore he was working in the field and carried a gun. He was growing up into a good man and Booth was proud to have Sweets in his life and looked at him as a younger brother. Booth hated that Sweets had been dealing with a lot silently and he was upset that Sweets didn't confide in him. He had thought they had trusted each other, but logically Booth knew that it didn't make any sense for Sweets to open up to him when he didn't open up to him about his past. He also on numerous occasions had stopped Sweet from talking about something personal that was bothering him. So Booth could understand why Sweets didn't come to him when he was struggling at the fear of being turned down. Booth wasn't going to let that happen again. He was going to make sure that Sweets understood that he was there for him no matter what he wanted to talk about.

Sweets let out a groan as he slowly started to come to. Bones and Booth both stood up from their chairs and leaned over the bed. Sweets struggled to open his eyes and Bones spoke softly.

"It's okay Sweets, open your eyes you can do it."

Sweets eyes flickered a few times, but he was finally able to open his eyes and the confusion was clear in his eyes.

"It's okay Sweets." Booth said calmly.

Bones hit the call button for the nurse and Sweets breathing started to pick up as the pain hit him fully. Sweets looked to his left and saw that his arm was in a sling and he could tell he was in a hospital. He moved his head to the right side and they could see his eyes darting around the room. Sweets reached up to the oxygen mask and pulled it down.

"It's okay Sweets calm down." Bones said trying to get Sweets to relax.

"It's hurt." Sweets said with a weak and hoarse voice as he started to move around on the bed to try and make the pain stop.

"I know it hurts Sweets just hang on a nurse will be here soon with the doctor. Just try and stay still it will hurt more if you move." Booth said.

"What happened?" Sweets asked through clenched teeth as he tried to listen to Booth and stay still.

"You were shot multiple times." Bones stated.

"What?" Sweets asked as he turned to look at Booth and his breathing picked up to the point he was about to hyperventilate. The monitors started to beep signally that Sweets was under duress.

Booth grabbed the oxygen mask and placed it over Sweets' mouth and nose as he spoke.

"Lance look at me." Booth said in a serious voice.

Sweets turned his head to look at Booth.

"You need to calm down. Take some deep breaths and just focus on breathing. Breathe into the mask for me." Booth said more calmly, but the stern tone was still there.

Sweets focused on Booth's face and did as he was told. He took a few deep breaths into the mask to try and get his breathing under control. He did his best to not allow his mind to think about the fact that he had been shot multiple times and he didn't remember any of it. After a few moments Booth spoke again.

"That's it Lance, good job just breathe. Dr. Roberts will be here soon and he'll tell you what's going on. Just relax he'll be here within a few minutes."

Bones went and placed her hand on Sweets' head and stroked his hair gently to try and help him calm down. She had learnt with Christine that stroking her hair always helped to provide her comfort and to help her calm down when she was upset. She remembered it helped her when she was a child as well and she was hoping that it would help bring comfort to Sweets now. Sweets was starting to shake and sweat lightly from the pain going through his body and Booth moved his hand off from the oxygen mask and down to Sweets' right hand. He took Sweets' hand in his and allowed Sweets to grip it as tightly as he could in his weakened state. After an agonizing ten minutes the door opened and a man walked in who Sweets assumed was his doctor. He came over to the left side of the bed as he spoke.

"Hello Dr. Sweets. I'm Dr. Roberts, I am your doctor while you are here. I know you must be confused and have lots of questions. Right now I need to know how bad the pain is?" Dr. Roberts asked calmly.

"Hurts." Sweets said through clenched teeth.

"Ok on a scale of ten?"

"Eight."

"Ok you are on morphine, but I can up the dosage for you until you are healed more." Dr. Roberts said as he walked over to the cabinet where the drugs are kept. He punched in his code and swiped his card and was able to get some morphine for Sweets. He went back over to the bed on the right side, but Booth didn't let go of Sweets' hand he just moved over so Dr. Roberts could administer the morphine. Bones and Booth could see that it was starting to work within seconds as his shaking was going down and the grip on Booth's hand wasn't as tight.

"Now Dr. Sweets what is important for you to know right now is that you have been shot. You had to have surgery in multiple places at the same time to assure your life. You will be very sore and in pain for a long while. The pain can be managed through medication until you are healed up more. You have numerous stitches so I need you to be very careful when you move. Tomorrow we can go over your injuries more extensive, but for tonight just rest. Do you understand?" Dr. Roberts said calmly.

Sweets just gave a small nod. He wanted answers, but right now he was too exhausted and in too much pain to care.

"If something happens or if he wakes up in pain like that again call for a nurse. I'll come by in the morning to speak to him when he's had the chance to get some sleep." Dr. Roberts said to Bones and Booth.

"Thank-you Dr. Roberts." Bones said.

Dr. Roberts left the room and Bones and Booth turned their attention back to Sweets. His eyes were half way open and they knew he would be asleep soon.

"You're going to be just fine Sweets don't worry." Booth said trying to sound comforting.

"I looked at your x-rays and all of your injuries will heal. So don't worry you'll be perfectly fine in a couple of months once everything is healed." Bones said with a small smile to Sweets.

Sweets turned his head slightly to look at Booth as he spoke.

"Who?" Sweets asked but his voice was faint as he was falling back asleep.

"It's not important right now Sweets. I promise I'll tell you later. You'll probably remember once you get some sleep. Just close your eyes and sleep. I'll be here when you wake up." Booth said gently.

Bones went back to stroking Sweets' hair and after a moment his eyes closed and he was fast asleep once again.

"Was he supposed to be in that much pain?" Booth asked with worry to his voice.

"He took seven bullets Booth. Even though some were grazes he's still has fractures from them. He's going to be in a lot of pain for a good month. It won't always be like that and it can be managed with medication he can take, but it's going to be a couple of months before he'll be fully healed and pain free I'm afraid." Bones said sadly.

"Will he remember what happened?" Booth asked next.

"It's hard to say with head injuries. He did just wake up from surgery though so it is possible that the next time he wakes up he'll remember." Bones answered.

"It's late you should head home. I'll stay with him."

"I don't want to leave him."

"I know I don't either, but you have eleven bodies to go over in the morning. You should go home and get some sleep so you can be awake enough tomorrow. I can always sleep here while he is. I'm not leaving him alone until another Agent stands on guard. You might as well go home and get a few hours of sleep before work in the morning Bones." Booth said calmly.

"Are you sure?" Bones asked clearly not sure if she should be leaving Sweets.

"Go, he would want you to be there tomorrow for those people. We need to keep him safe and the only way we can do that is to find out who is after him. I'll keep him safe you go home and get some sleep so tomorrow you'll be able to focus."

"Ok, I'll go. Call me if something happens and I'll call you in the morning to check in."

"I'll let you know if something happens. Don't worry Bones just give Christine a kiss for me and I'll talk to you in the morning." Booth said comfortingly.

"Ok."

Bones gave one last look at Sweets before she went over to the right side of the bed and gave Booth a hug and a kiss before she headed out to go home for a few hours of rest before she would go to the lab. Booth looked down at Sweets' sleeping face and he couldn't even begin to understand why someone would want to hurt him. He knew that Sweets had been hurt many times in the past and the thought just angered Booth. He didn't want Sweets to be hurt anymore and he was going to make sure he was safe. He wasn't going to lose him. It still blew Booth's mind that they had become so close since they had first met each other. Booth didn't like what Sweets' was and not who he was. Sweets was the therapist that could have been the one responsible for breaking up him and Bones. He wanted to talk about hard childhood memories and emotions, but Booth was not one for emotions or bad memories. So they hadn't hit it off very well. However, over the years he had grown close to Sweets and now he thought of him as a younger brother. He was going to keep him safe and make sure that Sweets knew he was loved and cared for. Booth wasn't going to let Sweets get hurt, whoever was after him Booth was going to make sure he didn't get to Sweets again. With that thought in mind Booth sat down in the chair next to the bed and closed his eyes to try and get some sleep until Sweets woke up again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cam and Bones had gotten to the Jeffersonian that morning at the same time. It was just after six in the morning and they both didn't get much sleep, but they wanted to be here early to check in on the status of the bodies and the case. They walked in together and Cam spoke.

"How is Dr. Sweets doing? Did he wake up yet?"

"He did very late last night. He was in a great deal of pain more so than I had actually expected. Dr. Roberts gave him more morphine for the pain. Sweets didn't remember what happened and he may never have those memories. It's difficult to say with head injuries."

"He could remember still, but it wouldn't be the worst if he didn't remember anything. I checked in with Caroline about Havier. I wanted to make sure he was safe and the gang didn't go after him next. When Sweets was shot she notified the foster parents so they were on alert and had a unit sitting at their house. Caroline also made it seem like Havier was arrested for the shooting of Decompo and going to Juvi. The foster family is going to put Havier into school under their last name as well just in case. So he's safe."

"Good I forgot about Havier. It seems like he is in a good home."

"It seems like it, but Sweets wouldn't let him go into a bad one we both know that. According to Caroline Sweets found this couple personally so I'm sure Havier will be with them for a long time."

"At least one good thing came from all of this."

They both walked through the glass doors and over to the platform. Once they were through the glass doors all of the interns went over to the steps to speak to them. On the platform were eleven horribly burnt bodies on different examination tables.

"How is Lance? Is he ok?" Daisy asked with worry in her voice as she spoke quickly.

Cam held her hand up to stop anyone else from talking.

"He is going to make a full recovery. He took seven bullets, three were grazes, but they did cause some damage. He took one through and through to his left shoulder blade fracturing the bone. He took a bullet to the left side of his chest approximately two millimeters away from his heart that collapsed his lung. He took two bullets to his stomach; one hit his right kidney and the other tore through his spleen. His spleen was removed and his kidney was repaired. He took a graze to the left edge of his left wrist fracturing the bone and his left wrist is in a brace. He took a graze to his right bicep and took ten stitches. Finally he took a graze to his right fifth and sixth ribs cracking them both and took twenty stitches as well. He has gain consciousness and as I said he will make a full recovery." Cam summed up before they asked her a bunch of questions.

"Holy crap." Fisher said.

"How long will he be in the hospital for?" Wendal asked.

"Roughly a week and then he will be living with Booth and myself until he is recovered and finds a new apartment." Bones said.

"Now I know you are all worried and tired from last night. The best thing we can do for Sweets right now is to find out who is targeting him. Dr. Edison I put you in charge until Dr. Brennan was able to get here. Please tell us what you have done so far." Cam said.

"Of course. We went down to the scene and took our own pictures as well as any evidence we thought could be connected and any particulates that Dr. Hodgins might need. As you can see the bodies are badly burned and particulates were embedded into the bodies. We have spent the night working in pairs going from one body to the next gathering all of the particulates off from the bodies before we were going to clean them." Clark started.

"Our fear Ma'am was that we would miss something vital that Dr. Hodgins needed and we would have destroyed the evidence. We thought it would be best to wait until Dr. Hodgins could go over the bodies himself before we cleaned the bones." Finn explained.

"That was the right call. We do not know what caused the fire and until Dr. Hodgins looks at the bodies we won't know." Bones said.

"Where is Dr. Hodgins?" Cam asked.

"Dr. Hodgins and Mrs. Montenegro went down to the scene to take more pictures and gather video footage. Dr. Hodgins also wanted to gather his own evidence and try to get a feel for what could have caused the fire." Daisy answered.

"When Dr. Hodgins returns he can go over the remains and see if there is anything missing from your collection. We take this one body at a time." Bones said.

"With each body that we removed particulates from we placed them in dishes and labeled what body and where we found it in case that matters to Dr. Hodgins. We were just finishing up the last two bodies when you both arrived. From basic observations right now we can safely say they all died in the fire." Clark finished.

"I want to start with the first body you started with and go in your same order." Bones said.

"I want two of you to go home and get four hours of sleep and then come back in. Once those two return another two can go for four hours until everyone has gotten some sleep." Cam said.

"We're fine to continue working." Arastoo said on everyone's behalf.

"I'm sure you all are, but you will get tired after working all night. Being tired could lead to mistakes being made or evidence being overlooked. Decide who is going home when, I don't care what order as long as two of you leave within the next ten minutes." Cam said.

"I didn't go to school yesterday so I can stay here and help. I rested all day." Arastoo said.

"I've been up for four days so I wouldn't mind some sleep." Fisher said.

"I want to stay still and go over the remains." Clark said.

"Daisy, why don't you go with Fisher?" Arastoo suggested.

"Oh I don't mind if someone else wants to go first." Daisy said.

"No you should go first." Wendal said.

"Why because I'm a girl?" Daisy asked slightly offended.

"No offense Ma'am, but ladies should always go first. Plus you just found out your ex-boyfriend was used as target practice for a gang trying to kill him before his apartment blew up. I think you should take the next four hours and get some rest and try and wrap your head around that." Finn said with a small smile.

"Finn is right Daisy. This is going to hit you and it's best for you to deal with it first before it does. Go home take a shower and get some sleep." Cam said.

"Ok, but if something happens will you call me please?" Daisy asked Cam.

"I'll call and let you know. Sweets is fine though Booth is with him and when he needs to leave he is going to have an Agent there on guard." Cam reassured Daisy.

"Ok. I'll see you in four hours then." Daisy said.

"Come on Daisy I'll give you a lift back home." Fisher said.

Both Fisher and Daisy headed down off the platform and headed out of the building.

"I want to go over the first set of remains that you started with alone. The rest of you go over the last set of remains and make sure you got all of the particulates removed. I don't want Dr. Hodgins having to spend hours going over each body." Bones said.

"We started with this one." Clark said as he went over to the body furthest from the stairs.

Bones and Cam both went over to the body and they both started to go over it as the others focused on the other bodies. It was going to be a long day, but they weren't going to stop until they knew who was trying to kill Sweets.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Booth was sitting in the chair next to Sweets' bed. He had just gotten off the phone with Hacker who had told him they had gotten eighty percent of the gang picked up. He also had notified Agent Sparling of the details of both cases and he was putting her on notice to be ready for when Booth was ready to leave the hospital. She was going to take up guard duty for now. Booth had read a text from Bones letting him know that she was at the Jeffersonian and that Angela and Hodgins were at the crime scene trying to see if they could find something. Booth knew he should be leaving and getting the person who shot Sweets, but he just couldn't bring himself to yet. He didn't want to leave him alone, even though Sparling would be here he still wanted to stay until he woke up again. He wanted to make sure that Sweets was in a better mind set and not in as much pain. It was just after eight in the morning and Sweets hadn't woken up since last night. Booth was glad that he had slept this long. His body clearly needed it and Booth was going to encourage Sweets to sleep as much as possible. Booth still couldn't believe that Sweets had insomnia and he had never noticed before. Looking back he could remember times when Sweets was awake in the morning before all of them. He had gotten Christine up without them even hearing her. The number of times he was still awake past midnight working on case files in the living room. The times Booth thought Sweets came home very late and left early, but Booth couldn't help but wonder if he had even come home at all that night and stayed at work working all night. Booth knew he would need to talk to Sweets about all of this, but he also knew it wasn't something he could do all at once. It would have to happen gradually over time so it wouldn't cause too much strain on their relationship and on Sweets' mind. Booth didn't know what happened to Sweets when he was growing up before the age of six when he had been placed with his adoptive parents. He couldn't help but think that Sweets' past was worse than his own and Bones, because they didn't have any physical scars from it. They had never been whipped so badly that it left multiple scars that still even after twenty years had not faded at all. It hurt Booth to think about a small, little Sweets just trying to survive the violence. He wasn't a soldier, he wasn't built to be able to handle that type of trauma and Booth knew that deep down Sweets was hiding a lot of pain from what happened to him, a lot of problems. Booth knew he wasn't a shrink, but he was hoping that just being there willing to listen would be help enough for Sweets. If not he would have to reach out to Chef Gordon and see if he could help them out with this even though he was no longer practicing.

Booth was taken out of his thoughts when he heard a groan coming from the bed. Booth stood up and went over to the bed. Booth watched as Sweets started to wake up and open his eyes. It took a moment, but Sweets was able to open his eyes most of the way and Booth was relieved to see less fogginess to his eyes. Sweets looked over at saw Booth.

"Booth?" Sweets' voice was muffled from the oxygen mask.

"Hey Sweets. How are you feeling? Any pain?" Booth asked trying to keep his worry from his voice.

Sweets moved his right hand and his movement was slow, but he was able to pull the oxygen mask down from his mouth.

"I'm fine. What happened?" Sweets' voice was still rough sounding and Booth figured it had something to do with the tubing that they had to use on him.

"Do you want something to drink?" Booth asked trying to avoid that particular question.

Sweets gave a slight nod and Booth went and grabbed a plastic hospital cup and poured some water into it. He placed a straw in the cup and held it for Sweets. Sweets used his right hand to hold the straw and took a few small sips before he let the straw go and Booth moved the cup away and placed it down on the side table.

"Thanks. What happened Booth?" Sweets asked again clearly not willing to let this go.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Booth asked as he hit the call button to let a nurse know he needed them.

"Havier killed Decompo. Um… we were at the Founding Fathers and I left for some reason." Sweets said as he tried to remember what happened.

"You left to go and see Havier to help him get set up in his foster home. Anything after that?" Booth gently asked.

Sweets closed his eyes and tried to calmly think back in his memories. He had done cogitative interviews before and he knew the tricks. He just needed to focus after a moment he spoke.

"There was a car and then gunshots. I was shot." Sweets said as the door to the room opened and a nurse walked in.

"Oh Dr. Sweets I see that you are awake. I'll just go and get Dr. Roberts and let him know. Do you need anything?" The nurse asked with a smile.

"No we're good here." Booth answered for them knowing that Sweets was fine until the doctor came.

The nurse gave a smile before she left to get Dr. Roberts.

"How bad is it?" Sweets asked once they were alone again.

"I should let the doctor tell you that." Booth said unsure of how to tell Sweets that he took seven bullets.

"Booth please. How bad?"

The tone of voice Sweets used reminded Booth all too much of the tone Jared used to use when they were hiding in the closet from their drunk father as he screamed and yelled at their mother. Jared used to use a tone in his voice that was caked with pure fear and Booth had never wanted to hear it from Sweets.

"Not as bad as you are probably thinking. You took a lot of bullets though and some were just grazes. You'll be pretty sore though for the next two months until you're fully healed." Booth said gently.

"How many is a lot?"

"You took four bullets to your body and three grazes that caused some fractures. I'm not the one to go into the medical, but I do know that you'll make a full recovery. Dr. Roberts is the one that operated on you he'll be able to go into more detail if you want it. Bones did look at your chart and X-Rays and she says you'll be fine and probably out of here in a week." Booth said trying to make Sweets feel better knowing that Bones had personally seen his chart and x-rays.

"That actually makes me feel better knowing that Brennan sees me leaving in a week. It can't be that bad then." Sweets said with a slightly relieved tone.

"From what I understood you have a good amount of injuries, but none of them life threatening or serious. You're just gonna be in pain and sore for a while. Sweets I hate to ask you this especially so close to you just waking up after surgery, but do you remember anything that might help me find who did this?" Booth asked gently.

"Wait what happened to Havier? Did he make it to the foster home is he safe?" Sweets asked with worry.

"I've spoken to Caroline. She personally made sure Havier was setup with his foster parents. Once you were shot she put a squad car on their house to keep them safe. Nothing happened though. Caroline also made it seem like Havier was going to Juvi for the murder so that probably got the gang thinking it was you that busted the library and not Havier. On the safe side though Havier is going to be registered under the foster family's last name and not his own. He's safe Sweets we made sure."

"Good that's good. Thank-you. He's a good kid I know that seems hard to believe with what happened, but he's a smart and a good kid. He just needs that chance." Sweets said and his voice was getting rougher with the talking.

"Hey I believe you. It took guts and bravery to shoot the man that threatened him and his mother's life. I don't like that he had to do it and grew up in that situation, but most kids wouldn't have been able to. We could have been searching for his murderer that day and not Decompo's. He gave up the library when he didn't have to. That shows me that there's hope for him and with being in a new area and having you in his life I'm sure he will make something really great with his life now. I didn't understand it at first why you went to work there, but I do now. I can see how you want to help them so they don't have to shot anyone to protect themselves. I get it Sweets and if that is what you want to do for the rest of your life and not come back to the FBI then I'll support you on that." Booth said sincerely.

"I really appreciate that Booth."

The door opened to the room once again and Dr. Roberts walked in. He spoke as he closed the door behind him.

"Good morning Agent Booth and Dr. Sweets. It's good to see you more alert this time."

"This time?" Sweets asked confused as he looked at Booth.

"You woke up late last night and were pretty out of it and in a lot of pain. Bones and I got you calmed down though and you were given more morphine for the pain." Booth explained.

"How is the pain this morning?" Dr. Roberts asked as he came up to the left side of the bed and started to check Sweets' vitals.

"Bearable." Sweets answered.

"Bearable as in I have a high pain tolerance or bearable as in you don't feel much pain?" Dr. Roberts asked.

"What's the difference?" Sweets asked.

"The difference is the stress on your heart. Your heart rate is up which tells me you are in a lot of pain, but you aren't physically showing it. So either you are lying about the pain level and hiding it or you have a high pain tolerance and just don't think the pain you are in is high enough to complain over." Dr. Roberts said.

"I have a higher pain tolerance than people would suspect that I do." Sweets said slightly guarded.

"Ok because of that you don't notice the level of pain as often and it is causing your heart rate to go up from the stress of it. I'm going to increase your morphine slightly, not as much as I gave you last night but enough to lower your heart rate. Your oxygen levels are good so we can remove that mask." Dr. Roberts said.

He went and began to remove the mask from Sweets and Sweets lifted his head so the elastic band could be removed from his head. He then rested his head back down and he noticed that the pain in his torso had gotten worse from the slight movement.

"Now Dr. Sweets you have been shot technically seven times, four made full contact and three were grazes. You took one bullet to your left shoulder it was a through and through but it did fracture the bone so your arm is going to be in a sling for a month roughly. Your left wrist took a graze and it fractured the side of your wrist it is also in a brace for roughly a month. You took a graze to your right side fracturing your fifth and sixth rib you have twenty stitches to your side. Your right bicep took a graze and you have ten stitches there. Do you understand so far?" Dr. Roberts asked calmly.

Sweets just gave a nod and Booth could see he was getting a little overwhelmed, but he knew Sweets would want to hear everything.

"You took a bullet to the left side of your chest, two millimetres away from your heart. It collapsed your lung, but we were able to repair the damage. You took two bullets to your stomach. One was to your spleen and there was too much damage I had to remove your spleen. You will need to be on medication for the rest of your life to help clot your blood. Finally the last bullet hit your right kidney, but I was able to repair the damage and remove all of the bullets. You will make a full recovery and even with the medication you can still be a Field Agent if you wish to do so." Dr. Roberts finished.

"When can I leave?" Sweets asked.

"I want to keep you here for at least a week Dr. Sweets. Just to make sure that you are healing properly and no infections come up. There is one more important issue we need to discuss, about sleeping. Would you prefer to have this conversation alone?" Dr. Roberts asked.

Sweets knew that Dr. Roberts wanted to talk to him about his insomnia. Sweets didn't want to talk about it and he had no interest in hearing a lecture from some doctor that had no idea what he had been through. Sweets looked over at Booth and even though he tried to hide it Sweets could see that Booth had already been told about his insomnia. Sweets couldn't help, but feel enraged at knowing that his personal medical information was given to Booth when there was no need for it.

"Tell me Dr. Roberts, exactly how many people did you release my personal medical information to that you were not authorized to do so?" Sweets asked with anger.

"Whoa Sweets." Booth started, but Sweets cut him off.

"Don't act like you don't know and don't tell me I don't have a right to be mad. You would be pissed if you were in my position. It's my medical files, confidential medical files that no one has access or the right to know unless they are my doctor." Sweets said angry.

"I'm sorry Dr. Sweets, but I have not released any of your medical history. I'm not entirely sure of what is happening right now." Dr. Roberts said.

"Dr. Wright told the rest of us that Sweets has insomnia, has had it since he was a little kid. He speculated that it happened from a traumatic event and is triggered by stress or other situations that trigger a memory." Booth said.

"Who the hell is Dr. Wright?" Sweets asked with anger.

"Dr. Wright is a colleague of mine. He is a psychiatrist and he had no right to release any of that information." Dr. Roberts said.

"Why the hell is a psychiatrist involved?" Sweets asked.

"Because of the level of sleep deprivation that you were in when you were admitted. I mentioned it to him so he could speak to you to see if there was something he could provide for you to help. I had no idea why you had insomnia just that you do. That information is left to different medical files as you know being a psychologist." Dr. Roberts said.

"What else did he tell everyone?" Sweets asked Booth with anger.

"That you were given sleeping pills but haven't been taking them. He speculated more, but by the end he just pissed us all off. He recommended that we don't let you have your gun or badge back until you have completed an outpatient treatment program. He said that we should even consider having you committed if you won't do it willingly." Booth said with anger.

"What?" Sweets yelled with vivid anger.

"Ya we all basically told him to fuck off." Booth said.

"I will be speaking to Dr. Wright and letting him know that he overstepped his boundaries and what he did was not acceptable. I will also be informing his superiors about the confidentiality breech. I apologise Dr. Sweets I had no idea that this had happened. I had hoped to speak to you about the insomnia while you were calm, but I have a feeling this is best left for another day." Dr. Roberts said.

"It's nothing. It comes in phases and that's all I'm going to say on the matter." Sweets said guarded and Dr. Roberts knew that now he was not going to get anywhere on this matter.

"Alright I understand, but if you change your mind I will be always willing to speak to you about it. I will be dealing with Dr. Wright for you he had no right to release that information or make those speculations and recommendations. Nothing indicates that you are a threat to yourself or to others. You have a very well respected job, you do not have a drug or drinking problem. There is no psychological concern. You've been through something traumatic, but you are well trained to handle the trauma of the shooting. As difficult as it is I need you to remember to stay calm. The added stress on your heart from anger could bring up complications while you are in pain."

"I'll make sure everyone knows to not stress him out." Booth said.

"Good. I'm going to give you some morphine to help with the pain and lower the stress on your heart now." Dr. Roberts said as he went over to the cabinet and got out what he needed.

He then went over and injected the morphine into Sweets' IV before he discarded the needle and spoke.

"I'm going to give you some time alone. If you have any questions just hit the call button and I will come back and help in any way that I can."

"Thank-you Dr. Roberts." Booth said.

"Thanks." Sweets said no longer angry, but his voice still had a rasp to it.

Dr. Roberts headed out of the room and headed in the direction of Dr. Wright's office to speak to him. Booth leaned against the side of the bed and looked at Sweets.

"Don't start Booth." Sweets said before Booth could speak.

"Look I don't want to upset you Sweets. Dr. Wright shouldn't have told us that information, but I can't say I'm not glad that he did. Why didn't you ever tell me or Bones? I understand why you didn't with the rest of them, but why not us? Didn't you trust us with this?" Booth asked slightly hurt that Sweets didn't share this part of himself with them.

"It's not about trust Booth. I'm just…I'm just used to keeping everything to myself. It's been beaten into me to keep things to myself and act fine. Even with my parents I did the same thing. It's not something easily broken free from." Sweets said softly as he looked down and Booth could tell he was ashamed by it.

"Sweets I understand that. I know that you lied to the doctor just now. You might have a high pain tolerance and I believe that, but you're hiding how much pain you're in because you were taught not show it. I get that and I don't like talking about it either so believe me when I say that I understand. We don't have to talk about this now, but just know that you can tell me or Bones anything and we won't judge you or hold it against you. We don't think anything less of you, no one does. You don't have to hide from us, but you really don't have to hide from Bones and me." Booth said with complete honesty to his voice.

"I know I don't. I'm just not used to that. My parents were great and they loved me, but even they never knew everything that happened to me. I keep a lot to myself. It's safer that way."

"Ya I know. I thought the same thing until I met Bones and found someone else that understood. I'm not one to preach I don't talk about my past either and I probably never will, but if you ever need to talk I'll be there to listen."

"I appreciate that. I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"There's a story behind it and I'm not going to tell you right now, maybe one day, but not now. I don't like this Dr. Wright something just doesn't feel right about him and I know maybe that's paranoia, but something just doesn't feel right to me. I need you to promise me that you won't let him take me away. Lock me up in some facility." Sweets said and Booth could hear the fear in his voice.

"I give you my word Lance that I won't let him or anyone else lock you up somewhere. You feel it in your gut that something isn't right with him then that's good enough for me. I give you my word and Bones would do the same thing we won't let anyone lock you up." Booth said with complete seriousness to his voice that Sweets knew he meant business.

"Thanks-you Seeley." Sweets said back with complete sincerity.

"You should get some rest your body needs it." Booth said looking to change the topic as it was reaching too touchy feely for him.

"What about the case. I can help you." Sweets said even though his voice was getting weaker from talking so much.

"I know but you don't need to push yourself."

"I'm fine I need to help. Besides I saw them I could help you narrow it down at least."

"Ok, what did you see?"

"The car was a burgundy old Buick. The driver was Hispanic and had a bald head. He had three tear drops on his right eye roughly twenty-five. The shooter was Hispanic and his face was one whole tattoo. It got my attention before the gun. He was probably the same age, but with the tattoo it was hard to tell. The gun was semi-automatic. Did you get the bullets?"

"All of your clothes and bullets went to the lab already. Caroline got us a clean house warrant and Hacker had a team going all night picking them up. He's waiting on me to question them."

"So what are you waiting for?"

"I was waiting to make sure you were okay and doing better."

Sweets didn't say anything he just stared at Booth and Booth couldn't help, but feel worried. He knew that look. He had seen Sweets give suspects that look many times. He was reading him and Booth didn't know how well his half lie would come across. Sweets was like a damn human polygraph. He could just tell when someone was lying ninety percent of the time. It was helpful with interrogating a suspect, but personally it was annoying as hell.

"You're lying." Sweets stated.

"No I'm not. I've been worried about you we all have been." Booth said trying to sound completely honest.

"Fine, you're half lying. Where is everyone?" Sweets asked.

"They are at the lab working your case."

"Why would Dr. Brennan be there without any bones?"

"Sweets they are working your case. There isn't anything you need to worry about." Booth tried to reason hoping he could buy himself a day or two before he would have to tell Sweets about the eleven dead bodies.

"Either stop lying to me and tell me what is going on or get out. Take your pick Booth." Sweets' voice was raspy and weak, but Booth could hear the complete conviction in his voice. He meant every word of it. Today was not a day that Sweets was going to be lied to and pushed aside.

"You need to stay calm Sweets. You want me to tell you alright, but you have to stay calm."

"Fine. What's going on?"

"Three hours after your shooting I got a call from a detective. There was a building fire and they had remains from the fire that they needed Bones to look at. I told him to put the case on to someone else, but when he told me the address we took the case."

"Ok so what was the address?" Sweets asked calmly.

"It was your address."

"My address? That doesn't make any sense though if it was three hours after I was shot then whoever did the shooting would have notified their leader. They wouldn't burn my apartment down too that doesn't make sense."

"It wasn't just your apartment. The whole build is burnt down to nothing from what I've been told. We still don't know if it was arsenic or a bomb."

"Wait the whole building? What about my roommates and the other tenants? Are they ok?" Sweets asked with concern and fear.

"Sweets, eleven bodies were discovered all burnt to the bone. You're the only one who survived that we can tell. There's no guarantee that everyone in the building at the time was a tenant though some could have been visitors we won't know until Angela is able to reconstruct their faces."

"Oh my God. Christy and Janet are dead. I can't believe this." Sweets said clearly in shock.

"We don't know who is dead and who isn't. Like I said they could be anyone right now."

"You said my case, but you didn't mean the shooting. There's no proof that my apartment was ground zero though. Any of those other apartments could have caused the fire or had someone targeting them."

"It's possible, but it seems unlikely. You were shot and then three hours later your apartment is on fire. It's a big coincidence. You could be right your apartment might not be ground zero, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning when I am not here an Agent will be posted on guard just in case. Hodgins and Angela are already at the crime scene and you know Hodgins will figure out where ground zero is. We'll get to the bottom of this Sweets."

"This is unreal. I took seven bullets because I helped a little boy do the right thing. Now my home and everything within it is gone. I can't believe this." Sweets said shocked.

"I know it's a lot to take in right now. When you are able to be released you're gonna come and stay with us again until you're healed up and find a place. But you're not leaving until you're healed and we catch whoever is targeting you."

"No, that's not going to happen. If I'm being targeted the last thing I am going to do is put you, Brennan and especially Christine in danger. That's not going to happen." Sweets said with a weak voice as he was growing more tired.

"Look it's not up for debate. I am not letting you live in your office or a hotel. Not while you are injured and potentially in danger. I get that you don't want anyone to get hurt I get that and I appreciate that you would worry about Bones and Christine. For now though, let's just see if we can find out who the target was in the building and go from there. I don't want you to think about all of this right now. Just rest and focus on getting better Sweets."

"Fine, for now."

"Ok, but we both know I am going to win. Are you alright if I call Sparling and have her come down?"

"Ya it's fine you should go and get the shooter and see what is happening with the case."

"Are you sure though? I can stay Sweets." Booth said not really happy about leaving Sweets.

"I'm fine. Go and help them with the case. You might even be able to figure it out before I even have to leave here." Sweets said with a small smile.

"The guys are all over it and you know they won't stop until they solve this."

"You should be there. I'm fine I'm just gonna sleep Booth."

"Ok I'll give her a call." Booth said as he pulled out his cell phone.

After four rings Agent Sparling answered.

"Agent Sparling."

"It's Booth. I'm assuming you've been briefed on the situation regarding Dr. Sweets." Booth started.

"I have been yes. Is he ok?"

"He'll make a full recovery. I'm at the hospital I need you to come down and stand guard."

"I'll be there in fifteen."

"It's room 516."

"See you soon."

Booth hung up his cell phone and then sat back down in the chair as he spoke.

"She will be here in fifteen minutes. Hacker told me she had been really worried about you. Even said she wanted to be the one to stand guard over you." Booth started.

"She's a good person and Agent." Sweets said.

"Ya didn't you two go out after Daisy?" Booth asked casually.

"Ya we went out for dinner a couple of times. Nothing ever came of it." Sweets said trying to sound casual, but Booth could hear the shame in his voice.

"What happened between you two?"

"Nothing."

"Something obviously did. I could tell you both liked each other. So something must have happened. No chemistry?"

"Definitely not the problem."

"So what was?"

"It doesn't matter."

"What stopped you?" Booth said after a moment. He knew that if it was something Sparling did Sweets would have told him. It was obviously something to do with Sweets.

"Why do you assume it was me?" Sweets said slightly guarded.

"Because if it was her you would have told me. What were you not over Daisy yet so you never moved forward?" Booth asked, even though he doubted that was it.

"No."

"So what was it?"

"Why do you care?"

"Because you two hit it off and you seemed happy around her. She's not a squint, but she's a good Agent and she is happy and fun and a good person. You two seemed to mesh well. Something held you back."

Sweets let out a soft sigh and Booth could hear the exhaustion and pain in it. Booth knew that now probably wasn't the best time to be pushing Sweets, but he wanted to show Sweets that he could talk to him.

"The stupid scars." Sweets said softly.

Booth gave a nod of understanding.

"She doesn't know about them and you were worried about how she would react to seeing them."

"I've had them since I was five and I hate them. Over the years I kept telling myself that they didn't bother me, but they do. All through school and high school having to change in the locker rooms. People would always make comments. When I started having girlfriends and when they saw them they would tell me I was broken and weak then they would dump me. Amy was fine as long as I kept my shirt on so she didn't have to see them. The only one that never cared was Daisy. She told me it was proof of how strong I am. With Daisy it was different. If they bothered her and we broke up I could avoid the lab. I don't need to be there for my job, but with Olivia it wouldn't be that simple. I see her every day. The chemistry was insane between us, I've never felt anything like it and I got scared of what would happen when she saw them. So after a few dates I never called back and kept pushing it off saying I was busy with work." Sweets said honestly.

"You know Sweets I've seen your back and it's not as bad as you think it is. When you were younger the women were younger. They didn't understand life. Daisy didn't care and I believe that Sparling wouldn't either. You still care about her and she still cares about you. I think that is worth the risk. I really don't see her having a problem with it. I've got scars too and I had a problem with them for a long time before a friend of mine told me that scars are just proof of life. They prove that we have survived something and are stronger from it. The memories behind the scars are painful, but they don't make you weak and they don't make you broken. When you're ready I know you'll take the chance, because I think she would be really good for you."

"Thanks Booth."

"Anytime Sweets."

"Can you do me a favor?" Sweets asked looking to change the subject.

"Sure."

"In my apartment I had a safe it should have survived the fire or the explosion. There's also a um…a really old trunk it was supposed to be fire retardant. It was my parents and all I had left of them was in the trunk. I don't know if any of it survived." Sweets said with pain to his voice.

"Hodgins and Angela are there on scene. I'll call them and have them check for you."

"Thanks."

"Now you need to get some sleep Sweets. I mean it no more talking."

"You'll let me know what's going on with case?"

"I promise you Sweets I'll keep you in the loop. Just close your eyes and let the morphine put you to sleep." Booth said gently.

Sweets just gave a nod and allowed his body to succumb to the morphine going through his system. Booth sat in the chair for the next ten minutes before there was a soft knock at the door and Sparling walked inside. Booth stood up and pointed to the hallway and Sparling went back out into the hallway with Booth behind her as he shut the door.

"He's asleep again. I appreciate you coming down." Booth said.

"He's a fellow Agent and has been shot seven times; of course I'm going to be willing to help out."

"He's going to make a full recovery, but he's in pain. More pain than he is letting on that he is in so don't let him get away with it." Booth said in a serious voice.

"I won't."

"No one comes in there except for the nurse and his doctor, Dr. Roberts. You need to check everyone's ID to make sure that it's them. Sweets has seen his doctor already so he'll know who he is. Keep Dr. Wright away from Sweets. Something isn't right about him and I don't want him upsetting Sweets. Sweets can't get upset, because it causes stress on his heart and with the pain his body is in it can be bad."

"Got it. I'll keep him calm."

"The best thing for him is to sleep so just let him sleep as much as possible."

"I will. Don't worry I'll keep him safe. I don't want him hurt any more than you do." Sparling said honestly.

"You still care about him." Booth stated.

"Of course I do. I thought he did too. Everything was going really well and then all of a sudden he stopped calling. I know he cares about me still it's obvious, but something stopped him."

"Sweets does care. It's just that he's been through a lot in his life and sometimes that screws him up." Booth said trying not to give anything away.

"I know he has. I mean I've never heard anything and he's never said anything, but I know he's had a hard time at some point. I've seen the scars on his back they came from something."

"Wait you've seen the scars?" Booth asked not expecting that bit of information.

"A few months ago. Another Agent and him bumped into each other and the Agent spilt coffee all over Sweets' shirt. He went into his office to change and I went after him to see if he was okay that he didn't get burnt. I walked in as he was putting on his shirt. His back was towards me and I saw them on his shoulder. I never said anything I figured he'd tell me when he was ready. A month later he stopped calling."

"He stopped calling, because he was afraid of how you would react to his scars. He's had all, but one past girlfriend reacted badly to his scars. He didn't want that to happen with you too."

"So that's what happened."

"I told him he should give you a chance. Maybe you could mention it that you already know about the scars in a subtle way."

"I'll work on that. Are you going back to the office to do the interrogations?" Sparling asked looking for a topic change.

"I am. Sweets gave me a description of both suspects and the vehicle. I'll see who matches the descriptions. Then I need to check in with Bones and see if they have come up with anything."

"I'll keep you posted if anything happens here."

"We'll be coming by to check in on Sweets throughout the day. If you need anything just let me know."

"We'll be fine. Go get these bastards."

Booth gave a nod and headed down the hallway to the elevator. As he headed out of the hospital he called Hodgins' cell phone. After three rings he answered.

"Hodgins."

"It's Booth. I'm just leaving the hospital now Agent Sparling is standing guard. I'm heading to the office to work on the interrogations. Sweets was able to give me the descriptions of the two suspects in the car."

"How is Sweets?" Hodgins asked with concern.

"He's in pain, but he'll be okay. He was sleeping when I left. Are you at the scene?"

"Ya Ang and I got here a couple of hours ago. Ang is collecting all of the video feeds that she can get that won't be on a server. I'm just going through the building. Booth man, there is nothing left of it. It's completely demolished there is no way this was arsine. Someone blew this place up."

"Can you tell where it started?"

"Not yet there's only a shell left and that is being generous. A fire wouldn't have caused this level of damage. Ang told me where Sweets' apartment was I figured I would start there."

"Good I need a favor or Sweets needs the favor technically."

"Anything."

"Sweets said he had a safe that would have survived a bomb going off. He's hoping you might be able to find it. As well as this old trunk that belonged to his parents. Everything he has of his parents was in that trunk and they both died before he started working for the F.B.I. I don't know if it would have survived, but it would mean a lot to him if maybe there was something that could be salvaged from it."

"No problem I'll take a look and see if I can find anything. Even burnt photographs Ang can always fix them up and reprint them for him." Hodgins said empathetically.

"You're a good man Hodgins. Let me know what you find out on the scene."

"Will do and let me know when you find the bastards that shot Sweets."

"Hopefully within the hour I will have that taken care of."

"Good."

"Be safe we don't know if the person who targeted Sweets will come by and see the damage."

"There are Agents all over this place so it's pretty safe down here, but I'll keep a good eye open."

"Be smart and let's get this bastard." Booth said before he ended the call and got into his SUV.

He headed to the office so he could get to work on getting the bastards that shot Sweets. Booth couldn't do much about the bombing right now until the others came back with something that could point him towards a suspect. He could get the bastards that shot Sweets though and that was exactly what he was going to do. So with that determination in mind he took off for the office to lock these bastards away for good.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was three hours later when Sweets started to wake up again. Sparling had been sitting in the chair and when she heard Sweets groan and start to wake up she stood up and leaned against the bed. She smiled when she saw Sweets open his eyes and look over at her.

"Hey Lance. How are you feeling?" Sparling asked gently.

"Like I got shot seven times." Sweets said jokingly.

"Well that's good because you did. You get shot a lot." Sparling tried to joke back.

"Ya first time was my fault a bullet ricocheted back at me. The second time was totally your fault."

"It really was. The first time I have ever shot someone and it turned out to be you, someone on the same side. Not a good day."

"It really wasn't, but you survived the investigations."

"I did thanks to the help of a Skrink who got me through the questions for the evaluations."

"Well you did feel really bad about it so it was the least I could do to help make you feel better. Besides it's not like you did it on purpose."

"No if I wanted you dead I wouldn't have missed." Sparling said with a smile.

"I'll remember that."

"In case we ever get married." Sparling joked.

"Exactly I will now know not to give away all of our money to a cult and that you have a good shot so I need to run in a zig zag pattern." Sweets joked.

"Lots of zig zags and some ducks too couldn't hurt." Sparling joked back.

"I'm good at running away. Had a lot of bullies growing up so I got that part covered." Sweets said jokingly, but Sparling knew it was true.

Sparling sat down on the edge of the bed and she looked down at the bandages that covered Sweets' torso. She put a gentle hand on them as she spoke.

"Are you in too much pain?" Sparling asked gently, but Sweets could hear the worry in her voice.

"No I'm alright."

"Well you are not alright, but what else do you say right? I remember going to the doctors when I was younger and sick and they would ask how I was feeling and I automatically said I felt fine. I didn't matter what was wrong with me I was always fine." Sparling started.

"I was the same way. A lot of people are."

"You know before I met you I didn't like you very much. The whole profiler and psychology thing I didn't trust in."

"Painfully obvious."

"I don't like Shrinks they have a bad name. Always wanting you to talk about your feelings and they always look at you like your some project. They analysis everything you say. I've never had good experiences with Shrinks and I don't like to talk about my feelings. I judged you and a lot of people have, but you are really great at what you do and you know when to be a Shrink and when to just be a friend."

"Thanks Olivia."

"No problem Lance." Sparling said with a smile.

The door to the room opened and a doctor walked in. Sparling got up ready to check his badge when Sweets spoke.

"It's ok, that's my doctor."

"I'm Dr. Roberts you must be the next Agent." Dr. Roberts said as he held his hand out. Sparling shook it as she spoke. "Agent Sparling."

"Dr. Sweets, how are you feeling?" Dr. Roberts asked as he went over to Sweets.

"I'm alright."

"How is the pain?"

"It's better."

"Well your heart rate is in a good place so your body isn't in much stress. I need to check on your incisions to make sure they are not getting infected." Dr. Roberts said.

Sweets just gave a nod and Dr. Roberts went over to the medical cart in the room and grabbed some fresh bandages before he went back over to Sweets and began to remove the bandages from each wound one at a time as he checked them over. Once he was certain that there was no infection he began to bandage the wounds again.

"I need you to try and sit up for me so I can see your exit wounds please." Dr. Roberts said as he was finished with the front of Sweets.

Sparling went over to Sweets and she helped him to sit up. She sat down in front of Sweets to help hold him up. She put a hand on his right shoulder right over the scars and Sweets knew that she would know about them now. Dr. Roberts worked quickly, but Sweets was beginning to shake with the level of pain his body was in from sitting up. Sparling ran her hand up and down Sweets' right arm and she kissed his cheek before she whispered into his ear.

"It's okay Lance just try to relax he's almost done."

Sparling moved her left hand to hold onto Sweet's right and she put her right hand on the left side of Sweets' neck and she rubbed her thumb along the side of his neck. Sweets just closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the feel of Sparling's touch. After another five minutes the doctor had finished with his bandaging around his exit wounds and Sparling helped for Sweets to sit back. Sweets was shaky and it was clear that he was in pain.

"You're in a lot more pain from the movement. I can give you some more morphine to help with it." Dr. Roberts said.

"No I don't want any more drugs." Sweets said with his teeth clenched.

"You're in pain though Lance." Sparling said gently.

"I don't want to keep being drugged all day. They make me feel weird and it's hard to focus. The pain will go back down shortly I'll be fine." Sweets said trying to take a breath to slow his shaking down.

"I'll get you a cold compress you can use it on your stomach incision to help numb it from the pain. I'm warning you now though Dr. Sweets if your heart rate increases too high I'm giving you morphine. If your heart rate gets too high you could stroke out. Do you understand?" Dr. Roberts said in a serious voice.

"Yes Sir."

"I'll be right back with the cold compress you can try that and see if it helps with the pain." Dr. Roberts said as he headed out of the room.

Once the doctor was gone Sparling grabbed Sweets' right hand again with both hands and she held it while he was trying to get the shaking and pain under control. She didn't say anything she just held onto his hand and was a silent pillar of strength. A few moments later Dr. Roberts came back in and he handed the cold compress over to Sparling. She took and it gently placed it down on Sweets' stomach where the bandage was from the surgery. Sweets let out a groan at the coldness of the compress against his sore stomach.

"If his heart rate gets any higher hit the call button and I will come back in." Dr. Roberts said.

"I will." Sparling said back.

Dr. Roberts headed back out of the room leaving Sweets and Sparling alone once again.

"Is the cold making it worse?" Sparling asked with concern.

"No. I just hadn't moved yet definitely don't want to do that again any time soon." Sweets tried to lightly joke.

"Hopefully this helps with the pain."

"It is, it's numbing it already. I'll be ok." Sweets said trying to sound comforting.

Sparling held onto Sweets hand and kept the cold compress against his stomach. After ten minutes his shaking had stopped and he didn't seem as pale. Sparling noticed that his heart rate was back down to a good range and she knew that he wasn't in as much pain now.

"Can I tell you something as a friend and not as a Shrink?" Sparling asked slightly unsure and Sweets knew that she was nervous about whatever it was she wanted to tell him.

"Of course you can."

Sparling let go of Sweets' hand and moved to remove her suit jacket. She threw the jacket over the chair and she lifted her shirt up to reveal her stomach. Sweets could see the scars from what looked like four stab wounds to her stomach. Sweets couldn't help but bring his right hand over to the one scar on her stomach and tracked his thumb along it.

"These are from stab wounds." Sweets said sadly as he looked at Sparling.

She put her shirt back down and Sweets moved his hand and placed it on her thigh as she spoke.

"I was fifteen. My father took off before I was born and my mom she wasn't really very good at being a mom. She was only eighteen when she gave birth to me. She never said it, but it was clear she thought I was ruining her life. Like I had a choice in being born or not. She always dated loser that didn't care too much about me. One guy she even told him I was her younger sister and our mother was dead. She had her moments though. Sometimes she could be a mother and just focus on me, but I grew up learning how to take care of myself. When I was twelve my mother started dating this man who was abusive towards her. For three years I had to grow up fearing coming home to what would happen that night. I spent a lot of time doing extra-curricular activities at school so I wouldn't have to go home right away. I also worked part-time on the weekends and a lot of the time I could crash at a friend's place. He never hurt me just my mom, but I didn't want to be there with them both drunk and fighting and then eventually he would hit her, she would apologies for something that wasn't usually her fault and then they would have sex, very loudly. Not fun for me. I came home from school one day when I was fifteen. He was already drunk and my mom was passed out on the floor. There was blood all over her. He had beaten her really badly. I went over to her, because I mean she was my mom. Even though we hated each other she was still my mom right?" Sparling said and Sweets knew she was looking for someone to understand.

"Of course you still cared about her. She's your mom and you love her. It's easy to hate other people, but your parents they're different. We all hope that our parents love us no matter what they do to us, because they're supposed to love us. It's natural for you to love your mother Olivia." Sweets said calmly.

"Sometimes I used to think that something was wrong with me because I hated her, like a lot. I even would wish that she would leave and not be there when I got home from school. When I saw her on the floor like that I thought that maybe all of my wishing caused it, that I was going to get my wish. I forgot he was even there and I went to call for an ambulance when he attacked me. He beat me pretty good and out of nowhere he pulled out a knife. He stabbed me four times and while I was bleeding he raped me and then he drank some more and he eventually passed out. I was able to crawl over to the phone and called for an ambulance and police. I remember feeling like I couldn't breathe when he was raping me and later I found out that the one stab wound had punctured my lung and I was drowning in my own blood. That's why I couldn't really breathe." Sparling said sadly.

"I'm so sorry Olivia. That's not something anyone should have to go through." Sweets said with empathy to his voice.

"It's okay. I've dealt with it a long time ago. He was arrested and obviously I survived. My mother survived as well, but she blamed me for what happened. Somehow it became my fault for everything. I moved out on my eighteenth birthday and I never looked back."

"Do you talk to your mother?"

"Nope not since I was eighteen and left. She knows where to find me if she ever wanted to see me or talk to me again. I don't care either way I accepted it a long time ago. It took a while to get used to the scars. I had some guys not like them and it's not like I can hide them. After a while though I decided that they weren't going to bother me anymore. Any guy that had a problem with them he wasn't worth my time and I didn't let it affect me anymore. Lance, I don't care about scars, I don't care about your scars. I knew you had scars on your back a few months ago when you got coffee on your shirt and I walked in while you were changing. If that is what kept you back then don't let it, because I don't care about your past scars or the new ones. They don't bother me. If you want to talk about it I'll be there for you, anytime. And if the scars aren't the reason why you didn't call me then I'll accept it and we can be friends."

"Olivia, I'm sorry. I should have called, I wanted to call, but so many past girlfriends did not react well to it and I got scared. I didn't want you to have a bad reaction and then we go to work together. Not calling you after that third date wasn't the right thing to do either, but I just didn't know how to tell you. I'm sorry it was wrong for me to do that."

"Just because you are a genius doesn't mean you have all of the answers Lance. I get why it made you nervous, because I've been there. I've done the same thing. And I know this is not the best time maybe to be starting anything. You've been shot, your apartment is burnt down and you may or may not be targeted by someone trying to kill you. Not the best time for any romantic interests, but I'm up for the challenge if you are."

"Olivia, I like you I do, but if someone is targeting me I can't put people at risk."

"I hate to burst your bubble Lance, but I'm already involved. I'm here as a guard it already puts me at risk. I can protect myself. If that's what stopping you Lance, then don't let it."

"I'm not good at that. Letting people get close. Booth wants me to stay with him until I heal up and find an apartment. I told him no, we're gonna fight about it, it's inevitable. And I know he'll win, because if he doesn't get me to agree he'll get Brennan in on it and if that doesn't work they'll bring Christine by and I can't say no to her. I don't want them to get hurt, especially because of me. I don't know how to take that risk."

Sparling moved her hand to the right side of Sweets' face ad rubbed her thumb along his cheek.

"You know what you have to do. I know you're worried about what could happen to them, but you know Agent Booth isn't going to let this go. Sometimes it's worth fighting over something and sometimes it's better to just give in."

"You think I should give in?" Sweets asked calmly.

"I think you know you are going to end up at their place at least until they feel it's safe for you to be living on your own. I think it's not worth fighting over something that you know is going to happen. Besides being at their place it isn't just because of you being injured or the situation. You almost died; they had your blood all over theirs hands. They need you there so they can make sure you're okay and for them to heal from it."

Sweets moved his right hand over to Olivia's hand that was against his cheek. He held onto her wrist gently and he turned his head slightly to kiss her hand before he spoke.

"I thought I was the psychologist." Sweets joked lightly.

"You are, but you have a concussion and you're on drugs. I figured I had to pick up the slack." Olivia said with a smirk. "How's the pain?"

"It's better. Can you move it off and place it against my ribs?"

"Yup, your right side?" Olivia asked as she picked up the ice pack.

"Ya"

Olivia put the ice pack against the bandages that were covering part of Sweets' ribs. Sweets let out a small hiss at the cold against his skin, but he knew that it would help shortly.

"Is that ok?" Olivia asked with concern.

"Ya it's fine, just takes a minute to get used to."

"You should be sleeping. I told Agent Booth I wouldn't keep you awake or let you stay awake. Why don't you close your eyes and see if you can sleep." Olivia suggested.

Sweets gave a small nod. He knew that his body needed sleep. It had needed it for a couple of months now. He figured while his body had morphine going through it he might as well try and get some much needed sleep. Olivia ran her hand through his hair and kept quiet while Sweets tried to fall asleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Booth finally arrived at the Jeffersonian five hours later. He had been busy interviewing the gang members. He was able to find the two that Sweets could ID and he knew their arrests would stick. He had been trying to see who the ring leader was in all of it, but he just couldn't seem to figure out who had actually sent out the hit. He was frustrated, but everyone in the gang they arrested were being charged with a variety of crimes so he knew he would be able to add charges later once he figured out who it was.

Booth headed into the lab hoping that Bones had found something. He walked over to the platform where Bones was with Cam and the other Squinterns, minus Finn and Wendal who went home to get some sleep.

"Bones, tell me you have something." Booth said as he walked up the platform.

"Not quite." Bones said sadly.

"You have eleven bodies and you don't have anything?" Booth asked shocked.

"We have eleven bodies horribly burnt with clothing and parts of the building embedded into the bones. It's a slow process to get everything removed from the bones without risking losing evidence that we may or may not need." Cam said clearly frustrated.

"We've finished cleaning the particles from the first body and I'm working on the other ones. I can only go so fast." Hodgins said.

"But we have one body free so we can start cleaning the bones properly and getting some answers." Clark said.

"Angela is up in her office she is going over video feeds first and then she is going to work on getting an ID on everyone. The landlord did actually have pictures of his tenants in their files that he kept at his home office. He took the pictures in case criminal activities happened, he would have the police a picture to show." Cam said.

"Good at least we can eliminate hopefully some of these bodies from tenants." Booth said.

"That might be a false hope. The landlord said last night that he didn't have any of the tenants calling him once it hit the news. If you are out of town someone would have called to tell you about your apartment being gone." Daisy said sadly.

"No phone calls to the landlord of upset tenants, not a good sign." Fisher added.

"How is Sweets?" Daisy asked.

"He's doing alright considering. Agent Sparling is with him. He's still as stubborn as ever." Booth said slightly annoyed.

"Did something happen?" Bones asked with concern.

"Just Sweets being his usual self. He doesn't want to stay with us in case he is being targeted and he puts us at risk." Booth said.

"So in other words a fight is coming between the two of you stubborn bulls." Cam said.

"He took seven bullets, he's not living alone. I don't care who is after him he can't live alone with his injuries." Booth argued back.

"I agree, but if you fight with him on this it is only going to make him even more stubborn. You have to ask him how he feels and why he doesn't want to be there." Cam said calmly.

"I know why, he doesn't want to put us in danger, but that doesn't make it better Cam. He constantly puts himself lower on the totem pole than everyone else. He does everything alone and he suffers alone. He doesn't need to this time and I'm not going to let him." Booth said back.

"Sweets just isn't used to having people there for him. He even kept his parents at a distance on certain things. You know why he does it. His parents were great, but they were older and they didn't push him on things. He's never had anyone there to push him on topics like accepting help. Even with parents he still had to do things himself. He still had to deal with it all by himself." Daisy said sadly.

"But he's not alone anymore and that's the point. He lived with us for six months. He took care of our daughter, he's her uncle. He should know that he doesn't have to do this alone." Booth said.

"But he doesn't and that's horribly sad. Just have patients with him he'll do what's right." Cam said.

"Cam is right. Sweets knows that he should be with us right now. He's healing and he will be in a great deal of pain for the next month. It makes perfect sense for him to be staying with us until he is healed more and can find another place." Bones said.

"It took him six months last time." Fisher said.

"There's nothing wrong with needed to be around people to sort out some things." Daisy said in Sweets' defence.

"He's going to have problems though. It doesn't matter who these people are, Dr. Sweets will always blame himself for their death just like he does with those Agents." Arastoo said.

"He's right. Dr. Sweets felt responsible for their death and now eleven more people have been killed. If they were killed because he was targeted it's going to affect him. He left because of those deaths, there's no telling what he could do if it turns out that these eleven people were killed because someone tried to kill him." Clark said.

"I hate to admit it, but they are right. How the hell is Sweets going to handle this if he is the target?" Hodgins asked not liking the idea of losing Sweets.

"Let's worry about that later. We don't even know if Sweets was the target or not." Bones said.

"I'll go and take these pictures up to Mrs. Montenegro." Daisy said as she picked up the pictures of the skulls they took.

"Oh Booth, we did find the safe and the trunk. They are both burnt and dented, but they are still standing. I opened the trunk just to see if there was any damage on the inside, but everything looked good. Ang also found half burnt pictures in his place and she is going to try and see if she can reproduce them." Hodgins said.

"Great thanks for doing that." Booth said.

"Hey they are important to him. From what I saw there were photo albums in that trunk. I would of have wanted to know if it was salvageable or not too." Hodgins said.

Cam's phone vibrated and she pulled it out to see a text from Angela.

"Angela wants us upstairs. She found something."

Booth, Cam, Hodgins and Bones headed up the stairs leaving the interns to work on the bones. They walked into Angela's office and they could see she had something up on her screen.

"What did you find?" Booth asked.

"You're not going to like it." Angela warned.

"Just tell me." Booth said.

"I gathered all of the video footage that wasn't kept on a database in Sweets' neighborhood. There's an old Mom and Pop coffee shop across from him that has a camera pointing right at his front door. I found this five hours before the building blew up." Angela said.

"So it was a bomb?" Cam asked.

"It definitely was." Angela said as she hit play.

They walked as a few cars went by and then they saw a man walk into Sweets' building.

"That's our guy. Now he goes in with that bag and he comes out five minutes later without the bag." Angela said.

"Can you get an ID?" Bones asked.

"Oh I got an ID. He wasn't camera shy. Just watch." Angela said.

They walked as normal traffic went by. After the five minutes the same man came back out of the building without the bag. He looked right at the camera and smiled.

"Pelant." Booth said with a growl.

"I tried to follow him, but without enough cameras I lost him a few blocks away and he was still walking at that point. Five hours later the building blew up. I have that on video too." Angela said as she worked on bringing up the explosion.

"So Pelant tried to kill Sweets." Cam said.

"Again." Hodgins added.

"Well it gets more complicated than that. While the computer was running through video footage I looked into the phone log for the Locas. I figured I might be able to figure out who put the hit out on Sweets. I found the call to the shooter from a payphone just minutes before Pelant went into Sweets' building. The payphone is located a block away from Sweets' place." Angela said.

"So Pelant made the call to get Sweets killed." Daisy said.

"But then why blow up the building?" Bones asked.

"That's what I don't know." Angela said as she played the footage of the explosion.

They all watched the building go up and they were all shocked at how big of an explosion it was, but at the same time it was controlled as it didn't go over to other homes around.

"Maybe it was an insurance just in case." Daisy suggested.

"Ya, but that doesn't make any sense. Three hours before the explosion Sweets was gunned down. They would have placed a call letting Pelant know about it." Hodgins said.

"And they did, it came back as an untraceable number, but they made the call." Angela said.

"So why blow up the building?" Cam asked confused.

"That is what I would call a Sweets question." Angela said.

"Let's just think like Sweets for a minute here. Now when the Agents were being killed Sweets told me not to worry. He said that Pelant wouldn't try and hurt any of us in our circle, because he needs us for his fantasy or whatever you want to call it." Booth said.

"Right and that makes sense. He framed me for murder, but he did no harm to me. He had both Angela and Hodgins drugged in their own home. He could have killed them and Michael, but he doesn't even touch them. He shot Agent Flynn, but he's outside of our circle." Bones said.

"Right that makes sense and follows what Sweets' profile is, but then Pelant tried to kill him with that girl. He changed the profile then. Now he's tried to do it again and blew up his house. Sweets is a part of the circle, so why is he going off profile to kill Sweets?" Hodgins asked.

"Well that's easy, Lance is a genius." Daisy simply stated.

"Almost all of us are Ms. Wick, he doesn't try to kill us." Bones said.

"Yes, but we're geniuses in our field. We didn't pick this career, it picked us. Lance is different, he's a genius genius. He picked his career when he could have studied anything and been successful." Daisy said.

"I don't know he seems like a natural born Shrink." Angela said skeptically.

"Lance has an I.Q. of two hundred and three. He has the third highest I.Q. in the world the other two live in Australia and Japan. He's a piano and chess prodigy. He graduated high school at fourteen and had two doctorates before the age of nineteen. If I was Pelant I would want to kill Lance too. If anyone could find Pelant it would be Lance." Daisy stated.

"He has an I.Q. of two hundred and three?" Hodgins asked shocked.

"He does. He's very gifted and he hides it well." Daisy said.

"You do realize that means he's smarter than all of you right?" Angela said with a smirk.

"Daisy is right though. Killing Sweets makes sense. I wouldn't want Sweets trying to find me either. Why the bombing though?" Booth asked.

"I think you should call Sweets and ask him. You said he knew about the bodies, he should know that it was Pelant behind this." Bones said.

"I don't know if he's awake. I'll call Sparling and see." Booth said as he pulled out his cell phone.

After two rings she answered.

"Agent Sparling."

"It's Booth, is Sweets awake?"

Sparling looked at Sweets and saw him opening his eyes at the sound of her phone ringing.

"He's awake, but he shouldn't be talking." Sparling said.

"We found out who bombed his apartment." Booth said as he put the call on speaker phone.

"Lance, your apartment wasn't set on fire. Agent Booth said that it was a bomb." Sparling said gently to Sweets.

"Lance?" Hodgins said with a smirk.

"Looks like those two finally made up." Angela said.

"What?" Daisy asked clearly not knowing that Sparling and Sweets had dated.

"They went out on a few dates, but then stopped. Looks like they might be back on." Angela said.

"You're on speaker phone now Agent Booth." Sparling said.

"Sweets I need you to stay calm. I have something important I need to tell you, but you need to stay calm. Can you do that for me Sweets?" Booth asked calmly.

"Ya." Sweets said weakly.

"Angela found the video footage that shows us who went into the building with the bomb. Sweets, the man was Pelant."

"So Pelant tried to kill me again." Sweets said weakly and they could hear the wheels turning in his mind.

"There's more. The two gang members that shot you last night, I was able to arrest them easily enough, but I couldn't find out who placed the hit. Angela was able to find the call to the shooter. It was made from a payphone a block from your house and five minutes before Pelant went into the building." Booth said.

"So Pelant tried to get Lance killed by the gang bangers. Then why plant the bomb? What in case they screwed up?" Sparling asked.

"That's what we can't figure out. Sweets, is there a logical reason why he would blow up your apartment if he thought you would be dead?" Bones asked.

"The safe, did you find it?" Sweets asked weakly.

"Ya we found it and the trunk. Both are fine, burnt and banged up, but they are fine." Hodgins said.

"What's in the safe Sweets?" Booth asked knowing that Sweets wouldn't mention it unless there was a reason.

"Open it; 25,48,19,3 and Booth, I'm sorry." Sweets said weakly.

"You apologising can't be good. What am I going to find in the safe Sweets?" Booth asked as he went over to the safe that was being kept in Angela's office. He took Sweets off of speaker phone and held it to his ear. "I took you off speaker phone. Why are you apologising Sweets?"

"He took my work and tried to us it against me, against us. Innocent people were killed and manipulated. I couldn't let that go."

Booth opened the safe and he found files and files of documents. He pulled the one folder out that was on top and saw that it was about Pelant.

"I never expected you to let that go Sweets. I get why you couldn't. We'll talk about it more. You should be sleeping. I'll come by tonight and see you. Just rest up now."

"I'm sorry." Sweets said again.

"Sweets I mean it, you don't have anything to apologise for. I'll come see you tonight and let you know what we got so far."

"Ok"

Booth hung up the phone and grabbed the folders as he spoke. He went back over to the others.

"This is why Pelant blew up the apartment. He was hoping these would be destroyed." Booth said as he placed the folders down on the table.

"This is one of Pelant's old alias'." Cam said as she looked at the folder.

"Sweets said he couldn't let it go. He did research somehow and he found out all of this information on Pelant." Booth said.

"Pelant clearly didn't want anyone to have this information." Hodgins said.

"I told you, genius genius." Daisy said proudly.

"He's got finger prints in this file for each alias. This is amazing." Cam said.

"No wonder Pelant blew his apartment up. He was hoping that the files would go up with it." Hodgins said.

"So he must not have known that Sweets kept it in a safe otherwise he would have tried to take the safe." Angela said.

"Which means no cameras were in Sweets' place." Cam said.

"Well that is a good thing. It means that Pelant only wants to kill Sweets and not stalk or torment him." Bones said.

"How is that better?" Daisy asked shocked that Bones would say that.

"It means he's just going to be trying to kill Sweets. That makes it easier to predict how he is going to act towards him." Bones said.

"But unlike the gang Pelant will know that Sweets is alive and not dead by now. He's registered under his name at the hospital." Angela said.

"Which means he will try again." Booth said.

"Why didn't Sweets tell us about all of this? Why keep it to himself?" Cam said clearly frustrated that they had been kept in the dark about the information.

"He would have waited until he had something solid. Right now it's just piles of information, but we don't know what it means. Pelant was obviously afraid of Sweets having this information for a reason. It must lead us to something that will bring us closer to his location." Bones said.

"Ya, but still he should have told us. We could have helped him go through it all. Now he's been shot and eleven people are dead." Angela said.

"That's not his fault. He didn't do anything that I wouldn't have done." Booth said.

"I'm not saying it's his fault. Of course it's not. He didn't ask for this, none of us did. What I'm saying is that he won't see it that way. He's going to blame himself for every single death that happened in that building." Angela said back.

"And that is going to be a problem." Cam said.

"We can get him through it. We just don't let him go off and be by himself again. We'll figure it out, but now more than ever we need to find Pelant. It's the only way from keeping him from killing Sweets. One of these times it's going to work." Booth said.

"Okay I'll start going through these folders and see if there is a connection somewhere." Angela said.

"I'll go through the particulates that I found. I might be able to reconstruct the bomb." Hodgins said.

"I'll help Angela with the folders." Booth said.

"Ms. Wick, we have bones to examine." Bones said.

"I'll come down and help." Cam said.

They all now had something set to do so they all went about what they needed to get done. All hoping that Pelant had made some kind of mistake this time around.


	3. Follow Me- Update

Hello there!

I have begun a collection of new books for all ages from children's picture books to adult series that are being published online. You can connect with me and find out more information through my social media pages. I am working on finishing my novel called Satanic Inferno. It will be published through Kobo on March 1st, 2017. Check out my Facebook page for more information and a 10% discount code for the first few days of the release.

You have all followed me on Fanfiction and I am hoping you will continue to follow me now that I have transitioned into writing and publishing my own novels. But fear not I am still going to be working on Fanfiction and finishing all of my stories. I'm not going anywhere in that sense. All support would be greatly appreciated.

Thank-you so much to all of my loyal followers. Without you none of this would have been possible! If you have any questions or would like a sneak peek of my novel please Message me and I will send it your way.

Facebook: DianneRose2016


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